The Girls of MonMusu: A Most Perverted Host
by PathofOdinSonofThor
Summary: OCxharem; implied lemon. Kayo Ghirahim quickly fell in love with the multiple monster girls staying with him, and even quicker for them to return his affection. However, as he tries to maintain his healthy, polyamorous relationship, he starts to notice his body and mind becoming stronger, and something dark watching his family. Something that wants nothing more than to see it end.
1. Preface

Preface

It's good to welcome you all back Wholesome Hosts! Putting this all into a single place is a long time coming, and it's a true sign of progress to finally bring a completed product to fruition like this. To anyone who might be new to the Girls of MonMusu, welcome! You're all in for a wild ride with this story, and I hope to see you all stay a long while.

I started this story as a gratuitously admitted self-insert. When I first started writing this back in February 2018, I was going through a pretty rough time. I won't go too much into detail about my depression, but the first few chapters of this story was nothing more than a way to cope with that darkness. I felt unloved (romantically, I mean), and undesirable. Naturally, this led to me writing a story where me and my waifu of choice, Best Girl Miia, had a very sexualized romantic relationship, which would then lead into a polyamorous with the other Best Girls, Rachnera and Centorea. All I needed was to feel that kind of romantic love, and this was the best way I knew how. Every chapter was unedited and written in an afternoon before posting, and really, I only ever posted that first chapter back in February just to see what would happen and how everyone would react to it.

It only took two weeks for this to become my most popular story, and arguably one of the of most popular stories on the entire Daily Life with Monster Girls tab on FF Net. With that kind of attention being given my way, it inspired me to continue with the story I had stared, and as a result, helped me grow as a writer with this being the very first long-term project I had ever completed. I had never even intended to get past chapter 2, let alone finish it.

It was an experience. First with this being the most popular thing I had ever written, and second with this being the first story I had ever completed, I got my first taste of that surreal feeling of unsatisfying satisfaction that comes with a major part of your life coming to a close. I don't have the words to express my gratitude to the people who inspired me to continue writing every chapter and was patient when I went on my multiple, several month hiatuses at times, so really, all I can say is thank you. You, the readers, are what makes becoming an author a truly gratifying experience. At a time when I cancelled a different story that I had put my life's blood into and was feeling like a terrible author because of it, at a time when I felt like a worthless, undesirable scumbag, I found my place on the internet behind a desk with a pen in my hand- a place I could always come back to.

In any case, if you are new to this series, again I welcome you! To introduce you to this story, it is a polyamorous romance where the main character, Kayo Ghirahim (I put zero effort into the name), dates Miia, Centorea, and Rachnera. If you're familiar with the source material for Daily Life with Monster Girls, you should know that the female characters are thirsty as all hell for the main character, and considering the subtitle for this story contains the words "perverted host," I'm sure you can tell how this story might go at times. I'll admit, it's a little… borderline M rated. Fortunately, I can scrape by on the T rating, but the sexual implications and implied lemon are a little intense.

As you read on, please take the time to follow, favorite, and review the story. If you are a returning reader, I'm glad I'm finally able to make good on my promise to bring this all together into a single file, and if you are a new reader, then I hope you enjoy this story you're about to read. Live long, and love hard, Wholesome Hosts.

-Path of Odin


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Waking up at 6 AM is never easy. If you went to bed too late the night before, your shoulders will be stiff, your eyes will be nearly impossible to open, and you feel worse than when you fell asleep. The only thing that would make it more terrible than that would be having a 25 foot python wrapping around you.

Granted, it could be worse. The python was currently pulling my legs tightly together, one cord wrapped around my torso, pressing one arm to my side and the other being bent in a direction that it would break if this kept up. Still, she was hot.

Let me clarify that Miia isn't an actual snake- she's a lamia. From the waist down she's entirely scales and slithery goodness, but up top is a beautiful woman with the most graceful curves, the comeliest of faces, and succulent DDs she was currently shoving my face into. I chuckled and used my exposed arm, the bending one that still had a bit of leverage, to tap her side. Frowning for the briefest second, she nuzzled against me and smiled, groggily looking into my eyes.

"Good morning Darling!" She said dreamily, propping her head on her wrist to look at me.

"Morning Love," I mewled through a yawn before affectionately pressing my forehead to hers gently, "Not that I mind, but what are you doing in my bed?" Miia grinned a slightly fanged smile and wrapped her arms around my neck, holding me gently, but squeezing my arm again.

"I was a little cold this morning so I thought I would just cuddle up next to you so I could warm up a bit," she explained, rubbing her 25 foot body against mine, alternating between tightening and loosening up, her fingers curling through my hair.

"Oh, glad to hear it," I said quickly, whimpering through the pain, "But do you think you could move around a bit and let my arm up before you break it in half? Please?"

"Uh-huh… Mmsry…" Miia released her grip on me just enough to let my arm up, but the minute I was free, I wrapped that now free limb around her lower back, pulling her more closely into me and falling right back to sleep for another few hours.

Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Kayo Ghirahim, and I'm the Host Family of a monster girl/foreign exchange student courtesy of the Interspecies Exchange Program. Also, she's a lamia if I wasn't clear earlier. The funny thing about this situation, though, is that if I knew that I would have a gorgeous woman fall in love with me immediately after she arrived in my home and I showed her a bit of hospitality, I would have jumped at the chance to sign up for the homestay program. The problem? I never actually did. You see, I expected never to be accepted into the program since the government would inevitably check my internet history, after which I would probably be quarantined from the public. Not even arrested! Just taken to a disclosed location where I could jerk it all day. However, as things turned out, the caseworker in charge of Miia's safety as she stayed in Japan was a lazy pile of garbage who took her to my house by mistake and left her here because she didn't want to take the time to find a suitable family for her. Sure, Miia likes it here, and I like having her wrapped around me every night to cuddle up with, but still. If I didn't sympathize with Agent Smith's lack of suitable wages, and if she didn't have the ability to take Miia away from me at a moment's notice, I wouldn't treat her with the respect I do.

A few hours later and the redhead and I rolled out of bed. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the cuddling, but eventually my growling stomach and need to pee, as well Miia's daily scale care kicked us out of bed. She went to her room and I went to the bathroom. After using it myself, I drew her a bath, and if I was being honest, I had a dozen questions of how lamia biology worked below the waist which I pondered over just about every morning. How did she use the bathroom, to give one example?

More importantly, how would I have sex with her? Not that I was planning that, of course, since it was illegal, but seriously. Human women have two legs which a human can easily fit into and penetrate her since our reproductive systems were basically designed for each other, but a lamia? That was essentially just a flat surface. Unless her vaginal canal, or however it worked for snakes, curved upwards at just the right angle on entrance, it would be like having sex with a hole in the ground. Again, not that was planning to do that.

Oh, who was I kidding? I was totally planning on defiling her.

Although, now that I've said that, I need to be even more clear with you now. I don't keep her around for the sex. Actually, I haven't even had sex with her yet, no matter how much I wanted to. I have very strong, very genuine feelings for her. There is no doubt in my mind that I'm in love with her, and without going into too much detail, it's because of her undying loyalty to the people she cared about, myself included, and brazen and abrasive personality. Plus, she was loud and obnoxious, which I loved. And gorgeous. Did I mention she was gorgeous? Because she's gorgeous. Oh, and at the risk of making people question… things… about me, I am way into fashion, and she has a beautifully chic style which I love. Not to mention how that style works with 25 feet of scaley coil which give the best cuddle sessions ever.

As I smiled giddily at how much I loved her, my goofy grin turned into a gushing nosebleed as Miia walked (slithered?) into the bathing area of the bathroom wearing nothing but a pure white bath robe and a matching towel tying up her hair.

"Oh, wow, the bath looks great! It's so warm in here!" Miia praised as she dropped her robe, her back to turned to me, and dropped into the tub which spilled water into the floor from the volume. Leaning back, she moaned in pleasure and sunk down. "Ugh, Japanese baths are the best! You know, I hear that Japan has hot springs that offer mixed bathing. We should totally go, Darling!"

When I didn't respond, she turned around to see me staring blindly at her. A smirk crossed her lips. Two seconds later, Miia was sitting up and turning to me, her arms pushing her boobs together and the tip of her tail in just the right spot to cover the good stuff.

"What are you looking at Darling? You're so bad," she teased, smiling devilishly, "You know, you could join me in here. There's easily room for one more." I was literally a tenth of a second from jumping in with her, but then my stomach growled loud enough that my side actually hurt. I looked at her apologetically and walked out.

"I should have done it," I said to myself bitterly, "I should have."

If you didn't catch it earlier, Miia and I haven't had sex yet. I can promise you that I have had multiple opportunities to ravage her beautiful body, but there is one major problem with actually doing it… I'm a virgin. I would be lying to you if I said that losing your virginity, finding the right person to give it to, finding the right moment, and everything that goes along with one of the biggest moments of your lives wasn't nerve wracking. There may be a lot of societal pressure for men to give it to somebody by the time they're a fetus, but believe me, listening to it would be a bad idea. It can and will most likely ruin you, whether you think so, or not. If I told you otherwise, I would be intentionally misleading you, and even though I'm a complete anus, I'm not going to be reckless with other people's lives like that and tell you to give your schlong to the first woman who's interested.

Don't do that. Wait until the right moment. And if the "right moment" never came for you, if you ended up doing to early, there's no shame in that. You did nothing wrong. Even worse, if someone took it from you, again, it's not your fault. You can't control the actions of other people, nor are you responsible for them. Stay strong.

When it comes to me and Miia, however, I can promise you that she is the right woman. I want my first time to be with her, but unfortunately, I'm terrified of actually doing it. Like I said, it's a horrifying moment for someone, but what's really stopping me is that she's so forward about it. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but every time she tries to rip my pants off, she- well -rips my pants off! She's so rough and hardcore that she scares me out of it every time. Call me a wuss if you want, but I just have no idea how to handle sex, and if she comes at me that hard, even though I know she's a virgin too, I feel like she'd be expecting something I couldn't deliver. I don't know what that would be, but that's my thought process. Fun? Performance? Pleasure? No matter what it is, I don't feel like I'd be able to meet up with her standards, so the pressure scares me off.

I'm an idiot. I know. Bugger off.

It took a very short time before I had an egg and New Orleans sausage omelette with bacon on the side for Miia, a pure carnivore, and an egg and spinach one for me with breakfast sausage on the side. I made sure to spice perfectly, though. Cooking is one of my passions, and I know I'm an amazing cook, so don't you forget it.

"Lift me up above this! The flames and the ashes!" I sang the Five Finger Death Punch song as I set up the plates, "Lift me up and help me to fly away!"

"You have a pretty decent voice, Mr. Ghirahim," said a woman's voice in the corner of my dining room. I glanced over my shoulder at her with a wry grin, already in the process of making her some dippy eggs.

"And you have a habit of breaking into my house in the early hours of the morning," I said to her, "But it's always good to see you, Agent Smith. How ya doin'?"

"Pretty well," she admitted as I refilled her instant coffee, "And you know why we sneak into your home unannounced, correct? All we are trying to do is make sure the Host Families of the girls aren't engaging in any… prohibited activities. Also, it is 10:30 in the morning."

The remark at how late in the morning it was aside, she was right, and that worried me. Agent Smith could charge into my home at any given moment, without any warning, just to see how I was treating Miia. It's a pretty decent idea, if I was being honest. If you don't know when the inspection is going to occur, then you always have to be ready for it, which means you can't be hurting the liminal species at any point. Unfortunately, this comes with its downsides, as well. Let's say a small accident occurs and Miia gets a cut on her face just as Agent Smith walks in on me trying to help her as lamia fights me off since she doesn't want me seeing her face. I would get arrested, she would get deported, and that one mistake of perception on Smith's part would result in a diplomatic incident. I will admit, though, that she's smart enough to know when an accident is an accident.

Unfortunately, this means that if and when Miia and I do boil each other's cabbage, we're going to have to be really careful about it since Smith could walk in on us. Granted, it wasn't like we weren't being romantic with one another. Like I said, we just have to be very careful with it.

"I'm aware, Coordinator Smith," I assured her, "Since you dropped Miia off here by accident, I've been studying the law intently. I'm fully aware of how the 'no interspecies violence' and 'no sex' rules apply. As for anything else in that bill, nothing else was really relevant to being a host family for her. After reading the entire bill, and I do mean the entire bill, everything else seemed to be international stuff she and I will never have to deal with."

"You seem to be taking this very seriously," Agent Smith noted, tapping a stylus to a tablet, "I'm proud of you."

"It means a lot to hear you say that," I said with a grin as I placed Smith's brunch in front of her, "I've put in a lot of effort. I'd like to think Miia likes it here. Has she mentioned anything to you?"

"Yes, since you've brought it up," the government employee stated, "Even though bringing her here was an accident, she said she would like to stay with you until her homestay is up. That's the official story anyway. The more specific details I couldn't put into the report were that she said she would like to stay here past her homestay, she's in love with you, and that she was surprised you were so welcoming to her when she first moved in since most people don't like snakes and lamia's by extension."

Looking back on it, I did try to be as hospitable to Miia as I could when she moved in. The girl was in a new part of the world, moving in with someone she hadn't even met yet whom she didn't even know would be OK with snakes, someone who might have afraid of her, but I've always had a rule- if you are in my house, you are safe. My house and home are a haven for anyone who walks inside, and after having filled out the application to actually host Miia, I made sure to put that down. The minute she arrived, I treated her as family. Not even as a guest. As far as I was concerned, the girl was a deeply close friend the minute she unpacked her bags in the guest room.

Don't look at me like that. Yes, my first thought when I saw her was that she was hot (my second thought being "oh crap, snake tail"), but I wasn't going to let a pretty face compromise my morals. She could do that later. Granted, it only took us two weeks to become a couple, but before that, she was family, and I treated her as such.

"Wait, what was that middle part?" I asked, pointing my cooking spoon at her as I set the dishes aside to clean later.

"That she's in love with you?" Agent Smith, "Yes, she mentioned that almost immediately. You see, the girls in the program are very passionate, and many form attachments very quickly which can make my job very crucial." I got the explicit feeling she was talking about me groping for trout in Miia's peculiar river. "When it comes to that kind of claim, the coordinators have to be on extra alert to make sure you two aren't engaging in any prohibited activities."

"Honestly, I have no idea how that would even work," I admitted, sitting at the table across from Smith and beginning to chow down, refusing to back away from her lest I look suspicious. I wasn't an actor, but I could bluff with the best of them.

"You guys have the parts that matter. You could find a way," Smith said confidently, "And I don't see why you wouldn't want to do something with her anyway. She has a tight waist, ample breasts, and you can't deny that she's very attractive."

"All true," I admitted, interrupting her just slightly, "But I also don't want to end up in prison. If I end up in prison for anything, it's going to be for six months at most, and it's going to be because I beat up some idiot who was hurting children or animals, which would be worth the criminal record. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life in the clink for something stupid like a five minutes of pleasure." Smith cackled.

"Excuse me," she snorted, "Five minutes?!"

"Darling, you're so funny," Miia said as she slithered in, taking a seat next to me and wrapping the tip of her tail around my ankle and kissing my cheek as she did so. My eyes went wide. Did she not just hear the previous conversation? Please tell me she at least heard some of it? Agent Smith was looking at her evenly.

"What was that?" she asked sharply.

"Oh, relax, Smith," I waved off panickedly but not showing it in the slightest in the best poker face any bluffer had ever seen, "You know damn well girls our age kiss people's cheeks to show affection. At least some do, anyway. Miia just happens to be one of them. You're so jumpy, you know? Relax a bit. I have some whiskey if you want me to spike your coffee with it?"

Smith blinked over her glasses slowly, but ended up smiling defeatedly and forgiving the act. I was still tense. Under the table I kicked Miia's tail lightly which earned me a curious look, but she rightfully chose not to say anything when she saw me eating my breakfast casually. From that point on, business had been concluded. Agent Smith seemed to be content with my knowledge of the law despite my absence of mentioning certain hosting responsibilities like constantly being with my charge and having their papers one me, and I guess she liked seeing how Miia and I behaved with one another. At that point, we just discussed recent events. It always surprised me that with how much Smith neglected and avoided her work that she still greatly cared about demi-human individuals judging by how the program and other interspecies relationships was all she talked about. Half an hour later, she left, and Miia and I were left alone to clean up the dishes.

"Her visits always terrify me," I told Miia tiredly, bumping her hip as she dried the dishes in the second half of the sink next to me. She smirked and bumped me back, yelping when I nearly fell over. I laughed at her.

"She terrifies me," Miia claimed with a shiver, "I feel like she's trying to suck my soul from behind those sunglasses."

"I can understand the sentiment," I agreed.

It took us only a few minutes to finish up cleaning from breakfast, and as I dried my hands, I saw Miia stretching widely with her arms thrown over her head, making her breasts stick out. I had just realized that her yellow blouse was soaked. I didn't even see it when it happened, but looking at her now, I could see her white bra shining through the cotton. I began breathing heavily, my face flush. She saw me staring at her, and with a fiendish look in her eyes, a toothy smirk striking her cheeks, I could already feel her tail gently working its way up my legs.

"So… I was thinking about moving some of the furniture around in my room," she said coyly, slithering up to me cutely but with a much more seductive look on her face, "Would you mind helping me?"

I shot that smirk right back at her, and casting a quick look over to the windows where I was assuming Smith was hiding so she could spy on us for a few extra minutes, I readily agreed. Miia squeaked happily and slithered down the hallway. Taking a deep breath and perpetually looking over my shoulder in case we were being watched, I tried to put my paranoia out of my head. I could either worry about being spied on which was most likely not happening, or have some fun with a cute girl. Which do you think I chose? To be fair, I did close the blinds.

As soon as I rounded the corner down the hall, I didn't even make it to Miia's room before she pounced on me. Before I even knew what was happening, she had me pinned against the wall and was pressing her lips against mine in a passionate kiss only a lamia, and only one like Miia could do.

Was there any doubt why I loved the interspecies exchange program?


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Agent Smith gave us a few hours to wake up before she returned to our house to give me a basic rundown on Miia's "social studies field trips." I hated visits from Miia's case worker on a normal basis since Miia and I were almost always fooling around in some way, making us always worry about when we were going to be interrupted, but this one in particular made me feel like a jerk. Miia came to Japan to learn about human culture. Over the past two weeks, all we had really done was stay at home and make out. I had to be a better host. Agent Smith made sure that this guilt wasn't lost on me with her cold stare.

Although, to be fair, this could just be business as usual for her. There was no way for me to really know if she was here because Miia had been stuck in the house for the past week and was kindly reprimanding me, or if she gave the lamia a bit of time to settle in before she would strong arm her into going outside.

"So, in conclusion," Smith reiterated, "On your date- ahem -your field trip, you can take her anywhere you please as long as she consents, you must respect her wishes if she chooses not to go somewhere or do something, must protect her from others who wish to violate the law, and you must absolutely not take her to any love hotels. Is that clear?"

She glared at us from over her sunglasses and Miia nodded at her, agreeing happily and excitedly while I pondered over the finer points of her speech. This whole conversation seemed weird to me. Agent Smith worked for the government which meant that she had to follow the letter of the law no matter how much she disagreed with it, but despite that, I had to admit that her prohibitions seemed to have double meanings. Obviously, even if government employees are human beings. They may have to follow and enforce the law, but that didn't mean they had to necessarily agree with it, and I knew that Agent Smith's first priority was making sure the girls she looked after were happy, even if that meant occasionally taking a more liberal stance on the Interspecies Exchange Bill, and sometimes even breaking it. Her words seemed to have an underlying tone of "do what you want with Miia, but don't get caught," making it seemed like she actually approved my secret relationship with her, even if she professionally wasn't supposed to. She even called our field trip a date!

"So, what you're telling me," I teased somewhat, "Is treat her like an actual person and not a hunk of meat, or a toy, and with respect? Got it."

"And no love hotels," Smith repeated.

"You know, I don't really understand why Japan is so famous for those," I mused, "I get how our culture does condone that and all, and how we aren't really that conservative when it comes to sexual things, but it's not like they're a big part of our economy or anything. I can understand the use for them, but still." Agent Smith glared at me with a twinkle in her eye, making me flinch.

"With your internet history, that surprises me," she insinuated. I shrunk in dread at that statement, learning that they actually did check that black mark to my character, but also making me realize that they still approved my homestay application in spite of that. Miia blinked at me.

"Darling, have you been looking up something bad?" she teased me, "You're so naughty."

"Oh, indeed he is," Smith played, flipping through a notepad, listing several less than reputable and highly disturbing things that wouldn't be on the popular tags of any common website surrounding certain sexual topics. Towards the end of the list, she looked up at me incredulously. "Spider hentai? Really?" I straightened up at that one. Yes, I knew I was a pervert, but listing off my search history in front of Miia was taking a things a bit too far, even if she was rolling on the floor in mad laughter at hearing it.

With that, Agent Smith bid us farewell and left my home. After closing the door behind her since I'm a gentleman and walked her out, I pressed my head against the wall defeatedly and groaned. That was way too embarrassing. Miia was still laughing in the corner which made it even worse, but she was recovering now and had stood up, still clutching her side as she shook with her dying giggles. Once she was able, she slithered over and wrapped her arms around me from behind.

"It's OK, Darling! It's not like you're the only guy who looks up porn on the internet. Did you think I would like you any less after hearing that? Let's get going on our date," she said comfortingly, but I yelped when she reached down and grabbed my manhood at the last bit, "I want to see if we can add 'busty redheaded snake girl' onto your list."

Strangely enough, that cheered me up. Laughing, I turned around and wrapped my hands around her waist just below her crop top, running my hands up her sides and feeling her soft skin and scales that overlapped one another in that area. Closing her eyes, she moaned and leaned into me. Her hands found their way to scratching my chest while her snake half bumped its way in between my legs, slightly lifting me up against the wall as it did so. Her sides were a huge pleasure point for her.

"You're too much, you know that?" I asked her, smiling against her lips, "And I think it's safe to say that 'busty redheaded snake girl' is already on my list. I just don't have to look up pictures on the computer to see one." Miia blushed and slapped me playfully, probably bruising my arm with her abnormal strength, but I laughed it off since I had gotten used to that. "Anyway, we should get going. If she comes back later and sees that we're still here, we'll both get in trouble." At that, my girlfriend frowned and separated from me.

"Yeah, you're right," she whined sadly, but then grinned up at me, her hands linked cutely behind her back, "I'm going to change into something more stylish for our date!"

"And I'm going to get dressed to begin with!" I bellowed before running back up to my room as my pajama bottoms began to fall off.

I couldn't believe this would actually be our first real date. The concept was somehow both equal parts exciting and terrifying.

(...)

Walking down the streets of Tokyo, I expected to get some odd looks from other individuals in the city. With the Interspecies Exchange Bill only being three years old, and with the existence of monster girls being made known the public only shortly before that, humanity didn't have very long to get used to seeing monsters in their town. Needless to say, it was an odd sight for most.

When they saw Miia slither past, seeing that 20 foot scarlet snake tail hog up most of the sidewalk and seeing some more subtle monstrous features on her 5 and a half foot human half like her pointed red ears and slit pupils, their eyes would naturally be directed to her. Most were filled with excitement at her demihuman form and beauty, while others were filled with disgust, discomfort, and pretty often fear. However, with rare exceptions, their stares were always laced with an underlying sense of wonder. It made sense. How many times do you see a lamia happily eating ice cream and playing a claw machine in the local arcade?

Even though it was our first date, I wanted to show Miia as much as I could about human culture, and she eagerly followed alongside me, excited to see everything Tokyo had to offer. Our day was pretty full with all of the plans I had. The first thing we did was have a decent lunch at a nearby cafe, where Miia had to learn for the first time how to eat ice cream judging by how much of the dessert she got on her face. Even if that was intentional, I didn't call her out on it. How could I not take up the chance to reach over and wipe a sliver of vanilla off of her cheek and lick it off my fingers? After awhile, I think she began doing it intentionally.

Next, was a karaoke bar. Normally, those places were open only after the school day had concluded since high school students were their primary audience, but after various species of liminals began gaining an interest in singing for profit, karaoke bars became a 24 hour service. The biggest problem were that the rooms were still a little too small for some species. I loved cuddling with Miia, but her tail covered so much of the floor that I ended up having to be crushed under a good part of it so she could be comfortable.

In the words of Bravery the Fearful Ferret, "The things I do for love."

After that was the arcade. Admittedly, that one had been a bad idea. Miia couldn't use the racing games since she couldn't fit into the seats or stationary motorcycles, she couldn't play Party Party Rebellion since she didn't have feet to press the buttons, and even the simulators weren't an option since she was too big. It severely limited her options for playtime. Expertly, though, I was able to cheer her up by taking her to the classic arcade games and the prize winners like everyone's favorite- the claw machine. Not to brag, but I won her a stuffed worm, and a potato pillow.

All in all, for her first time in human society and experiencing it's gifts and pleasures, things were going pretty well. It wasn't until after we left the arcade when stuff hit the fan.

"Darling, look!" Miia called, pulling me towards a building, "This store says it's for all species!"

I glanced down at the chalkboard stand that was set up outside of the building and read that the words "all species welcome." Naturally, I accompanied her inside. When we walked inside, however, a lump formed in my threat and my face became hot when all I saw was lingerie.

"Miia, I don't think I should be in here with you!" I said to her importantly, but she was already digging through the racks. Almost predatorily, she bounded over the displays and rushed me, holding up a green lace bra, and a blue bra with a white bow in the center.

"Kayo, you know that you're supposed to follow me anywhere," she reprimanded lightly, "And I could really use your expertise on this anyway. I don't wear bras so I don't really know how to shop for one." Whether it was intentionally seductive or not, Miia pulled down the top of her shirt just enough to cover the good bits of her breasts, but low enough to where if she had been wearing one, the top part of a bra cup would have been showing. Either way, I had to mop up the following nosebleed.

Miia tried to pull me aside, almost yanking my arm out its socket with her superhuman strength, but I had learned over the past two weeks how to work through that situation. I slapped her hand. Hard. With a yelp she recoiled and looked at me, stunned, then balled her fists and yelled "Darling!" at me. I smiled and took her hand again, massaging it.

"If you don't know how to shop for bras, then I'm going to teach you," I told her soothingly, making her look at me in confusion for one second, then giggling at me the next when she figured out I was taking an interest in her, like all boyfriends should.

Seriously, why is that some radical statement? If your girlfriend is important to you, then show her by taking an interest in what she's interested in, even if you end up struggling to do so.

Setting down her hand so we didn't end up getting any lascivious or judgemental looks, I stepped over to a woman who had been working with one of the mannequins, a strip of measuring tape over her shoulders, and spoke with her for a few seconds, pointing to Miia. She was understandably uncomfortable at first. I was a man in a lingerie shop asking a woman for her assistance with tits, so why wouldn't she be? After explaining the situation to her, however, a look of understanding dawned across her features, and she bounded over to the lamia with a bright, fake, sales-womanly grin plastered on her cheeks.

I stepped aside for a few minutes. In this scenario, while the woman kidnapped Miia to a dressing woman, the snake glancing over her shoulder nervously at me before disappearing behind the curtain, the safest place for me was the waiting room. Any reputable underwear store always had one. They understood that not all pieces of women's clothing, particularly the kind of product this store had, would be worn for the woman's benefit, so they would always have a place for men to sit down while their girlfriends tried on what they wanted. Not that I minded the wait, of course. Even though most people wouldn't expect a 22 year old man like me to break the law and actually be dating a demihuman woman, especially one as gorgeous as Miia, that didn't mean that Miia wouldn't most likely be buying something with me in mind.

Chuckling goofily, I imagined her in a lacy black two piece with a lamia-styled garter during our first time. "Do you like it, Kayo?" she would say cutely while I stared at her from the bed, "I picked it out just for you." Suddenly, the woman I asked for help came out of the dressing room with a bewildered look on her face, stepping over to me with her hands on her hips.

"She's huge…" she told me, "She's a 38E. I can't believe it." I had to wipe off my drool, being one of the very guys in the world that would actually know what that measurement meant.

For those of you that don't, the 38 is the length of the strap, showing you how thin her upper torso was, and the E cup is one size above DDD for the actual size of her breasts.

"That is both incredible and highly unnerving, but I guess since lamias are 90% stomach and have the abs to match that the lower back pain wouldn't be too much of an issue for her," I noted, "Either way, why are you telling me this?"

"I know this isn't very common practice," the saleswoman said, referring to telling a monster girl's host family semi-sexual things about her, "But she said you have a good eye for fashion and she wanted your help with it. Just know that I'll be watching you."

I straightened up at that last bit. Miss Smith may have been one thing, being a government agent but most likely willing to sweep things under the rug for the benefit of the girls she took care of, but that didn't mean that all humans were OK with things like this. Just like interracial and LGBT relationships, many humans weren't OK with humans and monsters getting it on. To be fair, I did understand the viewpoint from either a racist or human purist standpoint, maybe even a religious one even though I wasn't religious, but I entirely disagreed with it. Miia's and my relationship aside, love is love.

The immediate issue, though, is that this woman was indeed one of the few who wouldn't be OK with a human-lamia couple, and would probably call the police if she saw something like that. I would have to let Miia know somehow. Frustratedly, more angry than worried, I grabbed a few bras I thought Miia would have liked and headed over to her changing room, knocking on the side.

"Miia! I've got some stuff for you," I said through the curtain, looking away as I shoved my hand through to hand them to her. Her face appeared after taking them, holding the blocker up to her chest.

"Thank you, Darling!" she said, "And it's OK if you come in here to help me. You do have to accompany me everywhere, after all." She said that part so coyly that I shivered. If anyone was listening in on that, they would have easily thought Miia and I were together, so I immediately backed away from the area and went back to the waiting room.

"It's OK," I said in a rush, "I'll just be over- gah!"

Much to my dismay, she ripped me into the dressing room with her tail wrapping around my neck nonchalantly as if I was some plaything. I struggled to rip it off of me. I was pretty sure the only reason I was able to was because she released me on her own because if people died fighting boa constrictors in Brazil, or wherever in the world that happens, a lamia was guaranteed death. However, that thought was lost on me when I saw Miia holding up two of the bras I picked out in the mirror, examining them carefully. She was topless. And bottomless actually. In fact, even though her back was to me and I was sitting on the floor of the dressing room, I still had the perfect angle of the full body mirror to see Miia's full frontal nudity in all her naked glory of nakedness. The woman was right- her tits were amazing.

Either way, I screamed and ran out of the room. I didn't realize that something sticky was caught on my hand until I had gotten aside from the curtain and was bent over, trying to steady my breathing and mentally relieve the problem tightening my trousers. Looking at it, it was some kind of triangular piece of cloth. It was white with a bit of pink trim coursing over it, and the back was warm and sticky like it was an adhesive.

"Darling?" Miia said, making me turn around to see her close to tears, "I'm sorry I pulled you into the dressing room with me, but… please give me back my panties."

I glanced back at the article of clothing I had accidentally grabbed. Honestly, I couldn't say that I hadn't wondered if she we wore underwear under her skirts, and if she did, then how she did it.

"So, that's how that works…" I said to myself in amazement.

"Baka!" Miia shouted, and next thing I knew, I had been rocketed through the doors of the store by a slap from Miia's tail. One EMT visit and $250 worth of ISEP expenses later, and Miia and I were walking back down the street as the sun began to set, heading home after a long day of fun. Despite the injury, this had been a pretty decent date. The only problem was that stuff wasn't done hitting the fan, and after the lingerie shop, it was going further downhill.

"Seriously, Darling," Miia scolded, slithering ahead of me with one hand carrying her bags and the other straightening out her hair which she did when she got stressed out, "I didn't think you'd steal my panties. You can be a real pervert sometimes."

"I'm not going to deny that statement," I admitted, "But you have to admit that for someone with two legs like me, wondering how a lamia wears panties is a very valid question." A cold chill passed over me when I realized that could be taken as a very provocative question for her. When she turned to me, a vile smirk breaking across her fangs again, she reached down and held onto the hem of her skirt, making that part pull up just slightly in the middle of a crowd of people since we hadn't returned to the suburbs yet.

"Well, if you really wanted to know, you could have asked," she said, "I would have been OK showing you, Darling." Before I could respond, an obnoxious laugh came from around the alley ahead of us.

"Oh my God, did that snake thing just call him Darling?!" some hooligan of a drunk guy bellowed, his arm around a rather ugly woman.

"OMG!" that very same woman yelled just as abhorrently, "That is so disgusting! I mean, could you imagine how sick you must be to want to bang a snake?!"

"I know right?!" the man volleyed, "He must have been born with the world's worst handicap to settle for that!"

I had had enough at that point. Miia was clearly being upset by these two, judging by the way her tail shook and her fists were balled, ready to take them down, but I wanted them first. She could wait.

"Ha! You're one to talk!" I shot back sassily, immediately sensing Miia calming down after I stepped in, "When you first showed up with that beast on your arm, I thought you were dating a gremlin! My mistake. Turns out she's just ugly." The pair's faces dropped in rage.

"What did you say?" the guy asked.

"Um, who the frick are you? Don't you see you're dating a snake?" the woman snapped.

"Don't you see yourself when you look in a mirror?" I mirrored, "I mean, look at yourself, and look at your boyfriend. Now look at me. Now look at the lamia, now back to me. Now look at the ground, then back to me. I'm flipping you off. Now look at each other, then back to the lamia, then back to me, and realize that the deep tan, blonde hair, and loose thigh high socks are literally the most hideous things you could wear and make you look like the roadkill I'd scrape out of the grill of my truck!"

I had pissed off the woman's boyfriend enough at that point and charged me. That was just what I expected. Unlike most people, I don't really act out of anger, and when I do, every single move I make is calculated to the smallest detail just to make sure I get the result I want. I took a lot of practice to get right. When I say "a lot of practice" think years about dealing with humans who all have free will and will never fit into the plans you have in store for them. That practice involved manipulating their free will to the point where I always ended up on top. I was a schemer. I was a slytherin, if you wanted to make that comparison, and had at one point been described as a machiavellian psychopath. When the hooligan grabbed my collar, I decided to show him just what that meant.

"You really don't want to hit me," I said in fake panic. The guy set his raised fist down and pulled me closer to him.

"Yeah? Why not? You scared I'll beat you down?" he said cockily. Admittedly, I thought about hitting him for that which would have been stupid. I needed to stick to the plan.

"Dude, you're twice my size and built like a freaking tank. If we ever fought, I'd be the one on the floor, and you'd be the one walking away. You and I both know that much," I pleaded, "But the thing is that Miia is a liminal with no other humans around. That makes me her host family, see?"

"Yeah, so?" the guy asked, not following. I expected that much and followed my impromptu script, everything going to plan so far.

"That means that attacking me, according to the exchange program, is the same thing as attacking her, and I know that you know the law," I said, referencing how protected the species was from assault from humans, "Once you beat me down, the cops are going to come after you, and you'll end up in prison for life." I saw the guy was thinking about that mark and I had to fight to keep my smile down. "Do you think a guaranteed win for one fight is worth life in prison?"

The guy set me down. Suddenly, everything that didn't process about the situation earlier was going through this guys head, the gears visibly turning in his head. I rubbed my neck and finished this off with one more statement.

"I'm sorry," I said, being genuinely remorseful, "I didn't like you talking about Miia that way, and I kind of lost it. Are we good?" I smiled and held out my fist to him. Having calmed down, he smiled at me and bumped it.

"Yeah, we're good," he said, "Sorry about that, man." With that, he put his arm over his girlfriend's shoulder and began walking off. Smiling, I turned to Miia. My smile dropped when I saw the disgruntled look on her face despite the impressed awe behind her eyes.

"Why did you let him go?" she asked me somewhat harshly.

"Because I don't really like fighting, and street fights are dangerous," I told her defensively, crossing my arms, "Believe me. You're protected by default, but if I fight the guy- and yes, the part about you and I being considered the same under the law was a lie -then I'm going to have the gavel come down on me pretty hard. It's better that I avoid that fight all together than deal with the consequences."

Miia huffed and turned away from me, crossing her arms as we continued down the road. She was trying to be upset, she really was. However, I could tell what was really going through her head by the way she slithered up next to me until her shoulder was pressing against mine. She almost pushed me off of the road.

"You could have taken him…" she muttered. To be fair, she wasn't wrong.

"Maybe," I admitted confidently, "The guy was drunk and had absolutely no professional training whatsoever, but that's exactly why I didn't fight him. I've been doing Muay Thai and Judo for years, but it's not in spite of that training why I calmed him down, it's because of it. Having that training puts a higher responsibility on me than most people. You should know that yourself, actually."

"What do you mean?!" Miia asked offendedly, looking at me with wide eyes. Smirking evilly, I put my hands in his pocket and bumped her hip affectionately.

"Oh, come on!" I teased, "You don't think I can tell you're some kind of martial arts guru, my lovely, little serpent? Please, I can tell that the same way we could tell that guy would be dead before he even threw his first punch." Miia huffed proudly. She had probably been training even longer than I had, and twice as hard, so she had earned the right to be proud of her experience just as much as she earned that praise.

"What did you say punk?!" I heard the same voice from earlier from behind as he heavily ran at me.

I turned and the hooligan raising his fist. Fortunately, I was right in my assessment that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing, and had probably never even been in a real fight. Violently, I pivoted my foot, grabbed his wrist, put my arm under his, and flipped him over my shoulder. He hit the ground hard, knocked out instantly. As his girlfriend screamed like she was in a bad horror movie, I stepped back up to Miia with a confident grin while she looked at me just as proud as she was of her training. She was even licking her lips. As we turned to walk back down the sidewalk, she jumped onto my back, her arms wrapping around my shoulders.

"That was so hot," she said huskily, whispering into my ear which made a shiver crawl up my spine for the fiftieth time that day, "When we get back to the house, I am going to rock your world."


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Why?" I groaned at length, hearing my front doorbell ring a few times.

"It's so early…" Miia whined, wiping her tired eyes as she unlatched herself from me on my bed.

"I'll get it," I declared, rubbing my face in fatigue the kissing her on the lips slowly, "Go back to sleep." Nodding, she rolled over and wrapped her tail around herself, pulling the blanket back up as I trotted downstairs. I opened the door in a tight rage.

"It is six o'clock in the morning!" I shouted, probably looking like a mess with a bedhead and a greasy tee shirt, "What do you… Huh?" I stepped aside as a construction crew marched into my house, fully ignoring me as their foreman came up to me with a grin. I recognized this guy. I recognized the work papers he was handing me even more.

"It's good to see you again, Mr. Ghirahim!" he greeted cheerfully, "I'm glad to see you decided to host another interspecies exchange student!"

"Yeah, good to see you, too," I said groggily, as I perused over the work forms, taking a second in my post-dream state to process the second part of his greeting and looking up at him bemused once I did, "Hold on. Can we back a second?"

"That's right!" the construction leader whose name escaped me said with a loud belly laugh, "Coordinator Smith contacted us saying that you decided to host another student and asked us to begin the renovations to accommodate her right away! We'll get started immediately so we don't disturb your morning too much." Patting my shoulder, he walked off.

I just continued to stand in my place as the situation sunk in, as well as the implications and future complications that hosting another demihuman girl would bring. Briefly, I remembered a conversation I had with Smith recently. A few days after my street fight on my first date with Miia, the hooligan I knocked out seemed to decide on contacting the police for one reason or another, which inevitably got Miss Smith involved, and got her to do a surprise check up on my household. After telling me she talked the guy down from pressing charges, she praised me for bluffing my way through it, then beating him so easily when he decided to fight me anyway. However, what stook out about that whole situation was the evil glint in her eye. After referencing my internet search history, then commending how well I handled that kind of dangerous scenario, she told me she "knew what to do with me," and two days later, this was happening.

"Kyaaaa!" A scream came from upstairs. My shoulders dropped in dread and I ran upstairs, ducking around a construction worker flying over my head and seeing a bunch of scale care products that Miia kept in my room being thrown at some of the others. I ran inside, dodging a few. Her eyes were closed as she defensively tried to usher everyone out until I grabbed her shoulders.

"Miia! Miia, calm down!" I demanded. She stopped screaming just long enough to look at me.

"Darling?! What's going on?!" she shrieked. I gulped down the cotton drying up my mouth as I tried to figure out how to break the news to her. Miia was the jealous type. Another demihuman moving in despite her wishes would not only piss her off, but it would make for a lot of drama down the line.

"So… Smith had an idea…"

(...)

A few hours had passed before the construction crew had finished fixing up the house, opening up the rooms, widening the doors, and paying particular attention to the attic for some reason before heading out. As I ushered them out, the foreman handing me the same paperwork he did when Miia moved in. I wanted to smack him. The first reason was that he woke me up and destroyed my house, the second was how tedious the paperwork was going to be later on, but the primary reason I wanted to rip his head off was his laughter. I had bruises over my face from Miia's reaction to another girl moving in.

I joined her at the table with my third cup of coffee. Miia was still glowering down at her own, which had probably cooled down at this point, unwilling to meet my eyes and probably going to chew me out again if she opened her mouth. I had managed to explain to her, somehow, that it was really Miss Smith who had decided this, but she was still pissed. I decided not to bug her. Unfortunately, after I was halfway through the first stack of papers, she decided that she had to bug me.

"Are we really going to get another roommate, Darling?" she asked sadly. I looked up, a dead look on my face and a stressed smile.

"I don't really think we have a choice at this point," I said, "My house has already been renovated- which is awesome to have, but terrifying to watch -Agent Smith has already filed the paperwork, and from what I've been told, the girl is already on her way to move in. Apparently, that woman can move pretty quick if she wants to."

"It's not like you can't call and cancel before she gets here…" Miia said dejectedly. I raised my eyebrow at her. She wasn't willing to say it, but I could tell what was really on her mind, and yet, I didn't want to bring it up. I didn't think anything I could have said could have eased her mind on that front, so I figured it was best to let her bring it up first and just work from there.

"Miia, please don't put me in that situation," I said, unintentionally placing the blame on her, "This girl already believes that she's going to be moving in once she gets here, and is hoping that we'd welcome her, and if I cancel, it would completely crush her spirits, and if she's anywhere close to the same thing you worried about when you got here, being half snake, then she would probably blame all humans for being afraid of her. I can't do that to her." Miia pouted, crossing her arms. I think I somewhat got through to her when I brought the innate human fear over snakes and other creepers, knowing that a person's empathy outweighed their anxiety. Miia would probably see herself as a big sister in that regard.

"You know Smith is taking advantage of you, right?" Miia demanded.

"First of all, how dare you," I joked, "Second, you are entirely correct. That woman is more manipulative than I could ever hope to be." Miia glowered over at me for a few seconds, trying to keep her threatening stare, but ended up rolling her eyes.

"Fine, I'll give her a try," she agreed, but then looked down sadly, grabbing my hands from across the table, "But… what are we going to do?" I glanced up at her and sighed.

"I… I don't know just yet," I admitted, then kissed her fingers and nibbled on them a little bit, "But you know me. I'll figure something out as soon as I have enough information to work with, and it's not like you're going to move out of my bed anyway." She returned my smirk and giggled at me.

"I had better not!" she shot gleefully.

About an hour later, I had finished all of the paperwork and was making out with Miia on the couch, her tail wrapped around my ribs and legs while my hands found their way up her shirt and through her hair, her boobs the greatest things I had ever touched. She was so calm it was surreal. Honestly, I knew the reason for her still mind was because she was still kind of upset, so I made sure not to do anything she wasn't comfortable with, which to be fair, wasn't much. If I had been comfortable with it, she probably would have wanted to go further.

My phone buzzed. Pulling myself away from Miia as best I could, her lips continuing to trail up my neck, I answered it and grumbled. Patting her thigh, or rather, where her thigh would have been on her serpentine tail, she let me up. Grouchily, she knew what was happening. Whoever this girl was, whatever species she represented, the new girl was almost here, and Agent Smith was asking us to step outside to wait for her. Putting on a jacket, straightening our hair, we took our places out on the front step and waited for her, but then we looked over at one another nervously when we saw an armored truck pull up. Miia had shown up in a sedan. Sure, it wasn't the most comfortable fit for her, but she was able to keep her entire body in the back seat and partially in the passenger seat up front. How big was this new girl that she needed a truck? And why an armored one?! Agent Smith stepped out of the same sedan she dropped Miia off in which had been leading the other car.

"Good to see you both," she greeted, "I trust everything is going well and that you haven't been engaging in any prohibited activities." Something about the way she said that made me think she already assumed Miia and I were together, but that she didn't have any solid proof.

"Oh my god, Miss Smith!" Miia moaned, "I'm fine! You don't have to bring up mattress polo literally every time you visit us! Darling treats me just fine, and I am perfectly happy here, and if we were beard splitting, then you would just have to deal with it because it would be my decision that I would be perfectly happy with. Besides, I am never going to leave my Darling even if you bring the military to rescue me, so you can drop that subject at the door and save it for another family."

"I'm sorry," we all heard a playful, sultry tone come from the front yard, "You call him Darling? My, my. Isn't that interesting." Glancing up to the source of the voice, my jaw dropped.

The first thing that processed through my mind, having become desensitized to the more monstrous features of demihumans so I didn't see her lower half, was this woman's skimpy attire. I say "attire" knowing that that description is a bit generous. To be honest, I didn't know whether or not she had dressed up for this occasion, but I knew the less than professional outfit had been intentional by the way her exposed violet and black lace bra had matched the ornate loin cloth draped between her legs. Overtop the majority of her torso was a simple white blouse. This is what made me realize that she liked dressing slutty- not that there's anything wrong with that style -because instead of buttoning it up all the way, or rolling up the french cuffs, she decided that it was only necessary to use the bottom button on the shirt to keep it together.

Second, were her features. If you ask me, the structure of her face made her look soft and fair. Her eyes were gentle, her brows sharp but refined, and her smile something that I could call absolutely sunny, the combination of which striking the word "angelic" into my mind on the backdrop of her fair skin. Her eyes, however, were unnerving, and not because they were a dark, pupil-less pink and that she had six of them. What set me off was that they all worked in sync with one another. I couldn't even begin to guess how the muscular physiology of her face made the extra two row on her forehead crinkle and fold the same way her main pair did, but when I saw that all three pairs were trained right on me, I got the best and the worst shiver down my spine. She looked like she wanted to eat me up, and given my experience with demihumans, I wasn't ready to rule that out. I had just met her.

That's when I noticed what species she was. When she stepped out of the armored truck and turned to us, it processed a little late that she was standing at least five feet above myself, Smith, and Miia, but the reason for that were her legs. That's right. "Legs." She had eight of them, all leading up to a behemoth sized carapace behind her that served as her butt. They weren't thick and hairy, and I wouldn't really say they were long and spindly either, but I could still see the strength behind the chitinous exoskeleton no matter how thin and short they were for her kind.

I had met her species once before, actually, when I volunteered to help set up for a meet and greet at the community center. The only girl I got to meet there was another coordinator like Smith and was the same species as the girl standing before me, only her eight legs were twice as long as my body, and her much smaller thorax closer to the ground. (I don't know if thorax is the right body part for this species, though.) If I had to compare that one to an non-sentient creature, I'd call her a water spider. This arachne, however, shared a similar body type to a black widow, and judging by the skull emblazoning her backside, I could only guess that that was what she was. At the distance we were at, I measured her legs to be about chin height for me, and her thorax about a third of the size of my ford F150.

Having been one of only two people in the group of ten that had helped this woman move into my house that wasn't afraid of her, I gasped like a hot tea kettle. However, unlike Smith who had to keep things professional, I had already fallen head over heels with this girl. To be more precise, I fell in love with the idea of her. For a terrifying second, a long enough second for me to mess up judging by the first words she heard come out of my mouth, I forgot she was a sentient, demihuman girl and not just a very attractive spider.

"She's beautiful!" I squealed. I didn't realize how bad that sounded until the words had already left my mouth. Smith glanced over to me, her sunglasses falling right off of her face and her jaw dropped as she began planning my funeral. Miia's tail began rattling as she glared daggers into the back of my skull, her hair probably having combusted from anger alone. As for this new girl, she barely had any noticeable reaction. Her face contorted for one second, her eyes going wide and her smile dropping ever so slightly, before bringing her violet claws up to her face, brushing her lavender hair out of flattery.

"That was quite the introduction, Mr. Ghirahim," she shot slyly, a grin plastering her face, "At least, now I know you aren't afraid of spiders. If that sort of treatment keeps up, then I think I'm going to like it here!"

With the best kind of twist crawling its way from my stomach to my throat, a sign of being pleasantly creeped out, she skittered past myself and Miia into the house where the moving crew was already bringing her bags. Standing in the doorway, she braced herself against the frame comfortably as she looked over her shoulder. She was smiling directly at Agent Smith. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell if that smile was one of kindness, or if she was planning on snapping the woman's neck for no other reason than that she was still there.

"Thank you for dropping me off, Miss Smith, but your services are no longer required," she said confidently as if she was royalty instead of a client, "As you can see, there will be no problems here in this household. Although, I will tell you that I already like it here more than the other place you were going to send me to."

That finished, she stepped inside my house while I closed the door behind her. The last thing I saw was her arms crossed as she examined every single nook and cranny in the building, an adventurous look in her eyes. Slowly, I turned to Smith and Miia. The latter looked like she was about ready to explode me, her pupils thinning so much in fury that they may not have even been there in the first place, and her hands tensely breaking open as if she was going to claw my chest open. Smith, on the other hand, was rubbing her temples, groaning under her breath.

"So…" I tried, although keeping my mouth shut probably would have been better, "She's an Arachne… neat." They could probably hear the fear in my voice. If my first statement was anything to go off of, they could probably also tell that the tone wasn't because of the new girl's species. I guessed as much when Miia's tail wrapped around my neck and pushed me against the door.

"What was that filth?!" Miia demanded, "'She's beautiful.' Are you trying to make me jealous or something? Because it's working and I don't like it!"

"Miia, Miia!" Smith said pleasantly, tapping the lamia's shoulder, "Relax, it's understandable that someone like Kayo, someone who is into spider trivia, would find Rachnera attractive. He obviously forgot that the girl was a girl, and treated her like an animal instead. Right?" The last word was accompanied by the deadliest of looks I had ever seen on someone.

There was no way I could answer that and win. I had to find someway to avoid answering the question while still giving them a satisfying distraction. Perhaps I was a little too mean in my bluff.

"M-Miia! You're ch-choking me!" I gagged, clawing at her tail and making my eyes look like they were bulging out of my skull. I was faking it, of course, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The only problem was that this couldn't be a small issue. If I was going to make them forget the question they had asked me, then by Athena and her almighty loom, I was going to have to sell this.

Miia panicked and dropped me on the ground where I fell to my knees in a coughing fit. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see both of their worry. Smith knelt down to make sure I was OK, and with just enough peripheral vision to her, I caught Miia covering her mouth with both of her hands, her eyes filled with fear and remorse. I stayed down there for little over half a minute. I knew that if I stayed down there too long, it would have looked suspicious, but Miia gave me a good excuse to change scenes when she bent over to try to help me up.

"Darling, I-" she tried, but stopped when I put my hand up.

"I'm good," I said, panting, "Just… give me a second."

At that point, I stood up and coughed a few more times lightly, ready for the final act. Miia tried to apologize. She reached over to put her hand on my shoulder, but retracted it when I not only stepped away from her touch, but that I recoiled and placed my hands out in front of me in the universal "stay away" gesture.

"I'm sorry, but…" I said, "I'll be fine later. I just don't want to be touched right now, OK?" I kicked myself. Miia looked like she was about ready to cry.

"OK…" she said quietly, "I'm… I'm sorry for… I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't mean it…" I smiled at her kindly.

"I know," I said warmly, "I did kind of deserve it, didn't I? Why don't you go inside and meet our new family member? I'm sure Smith has some stuff she wants to go over with me since it is this girl's first day." When Miia tried to slither past me, I reached out and wrapped my arm very loosely around hers, just tight enough to let her know she and I were fine, but without enough strength to lose the illusion of not wanting to be touched. It seemed to cheer her up. As soon as the door had closed again, I turned to Agent Smith.

"That was a fabulous bit of theatrics, Kayo," she said with mock applause, "Well, done." I crossed my eyes and looked her over with an expert poker face. When I was met with the same expression, I shrugged and admitted my defeat like the honorable person I was.

"I can't hide anything from you, can I?" I said, knowing she knew I was faking that tension.

"As long as you don't give anyone else a reason to suspect you, there's nothing I can do," Smith shot back, flipping through the spider girl's file.

I knit my brow. Most people may not have been able to pick up on the subtle nuance of that statement, but most people weren't me. Smith's double meaning was obvious. I wasn't sure how she figured it out, but she knew that Miia and I were already together, and she was playing dumb for our sakes. That's what that statement was referring to. Although, there was a second part to her accusation that I needed to pay attention to, and that was her telling me not to give anyone a reason to suspect us. Essentially, she was saying don't leave evidence. No phone calls, no text messages, no emails, no dirty pictures, no public displays of affection, and even though Smith both knew about the relationship and condoned it, no being romantic in front of her, either. She was a government employee, after all. There was only so much stuff she could turn a blind eye to, but if we ended up giving her cold hard evidence that Miia and I were in a relationship, let's say kissing each other at the dinner table while she's visiting, then Smith wouldn't have any other choice than to turn us in.

"So, in all sense of urgency so I put out a fire before it starts, what am I dealing with here?" I asked the coordinator pressingly, my urge to slap her rising fast despite not being what one would call a violent person.

"Her name is Rachnera Arachnera," Smith began, handing me her file so I could flip through it, "She's an arachne, as you've already seen, which just so you're aware, is one of the most dangerous demi human species that have made themselves known to the human governments. I've compiled an RPG stat sheet just to make it easier for you."

"Her speed, dexterity, durability, trick, and endurance are all nines," I noticed the measurement, impressed that this was on a scale of ten, "Why is her strength only a seven?" When I didn't get an answer, I glanced back up to Smith who had her arms crossed and was smiling at me slyly.

"Really?" she asked flatly, "You're dealing with one of the most dangerous beings in existence, and you to ask me why her strength is so low?"

"I'm just making the assumption that she's not going to kill me," I said with a cocky grin, "What would you expect me to ask? How would she hide my body?"

"Oh, she wouldn't hide your body," Smith said all too casually, "She would eat you completely after draining all of your blood from your stomach."

I stared at the agent blankly.

"You must be very fun at parties," I deadpanned.

"What can I say? I'm a hoot," she said, "In any case, the only thing I can really tell you to watch out for are her webs, and to respect her privacy. She likes to keep to herself, so if you do happen to go into the room she chooses for any reason while she's in there, she won't hesitate to tie you up, and even if she isn't there, she'll most likely have traps set for any intruders. Anything else that you should watch for would come standard with hosting multiple girls."

Smith stepped up to me and tapped my chest with her pen.

"As the host family, you have a responsibility to make sure those two get along, both for the prosperity of your own household, your personal well being, and for the improvement of relations between all species; not just monsters and humans," Smith implored in a deeper, more serious tone than before, "I know I threw this on you without warning, and without asking you, but I expect you to handle this to the best of your ability."

I nodded grimly. That statement sounded like a finisher, so I was surprised when Miss Smith stepped back and let out a nervous breath she had been holding in, taking off her glasses.

"So, what are you going to do about…" Agent Smith gestured vaguely.

"Um…" I gulped, "Pray. After that, it only becomes a matter of hiding it from Rachnera properly and not be too suspicious about it, but if worse comes to worst, I'm hoping that she wouldn't be too… upset about it."

"Knowing her, she'd probably have your back and hide it from me," Smith said, then clarified, "Well, from agents who actually care about their jobs, that is." I scoffed gratefully and fist bumped her.

"Thanks, Smith," I said, then I made sure she got to her car safely and waved her off before stepping back inside. It was both satisfying and surprising how we managed to have that conversation, no matter how brief, without once actually stating clearly what we were talking about. Lazy as she was with actual work, the woman was surprisingly intelligent. That mental praise was lost on me, however, when I walked back into the house to see just what Smith had meant she said Rachnera liked to tie people up.

"Oh, hello Honey!" Rachnera greeted me with an innocent smile, holding a strand of her webs in her hands like a whip, "We were just playing a little game. Don't mind us."

I could see that, but their game was less of something you do at highschool parties, and more what you do in the dungeon of a sex fiend. Also, I just so happened to be the sex fiend that would like to play this game.

My shirt quickly dyed itself red when my nose gushed blood at the sight before me, my pants tightening uncomfortably. Miia was tied up. The webbing was tied in a such a way that perked up her breasts as they circled them tightly, the rope then going down her abdomen in a diamond pattern and cupping her snake butt. Being a snake, Rachnera had to alter the knot to create a kind of outline for her crotch instead of looping the rope in between her legs, but that was just as alluring to me as the alternative, and yet the best part was up top where Miia had her hands tied above her head and a gag around her mouth. Fortunately, Rachnera had the decency to know blindfolding her would be going too far. Despite the deadly and panic glare that Miia was shooting my way, or maybe because of it, I wasn't sure if Miia was enjoying this scenario or too freaked out by it to do break out of it since her tail wasn't bound.

"Hey, Rachnera?" I asked tightly.

"Yes?" she returned without at all being perturbed by her game.

"You are just a treat."


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Miia and I had a bad habit of starting off our mornings by making out. When Rachnera arrived, I made sure she knew that Miia and I were going to continue sleeping in the same bad since we had become used to that, and since it helped keep Miia's body as a good temperature, but made sure to leave out the fun bits. Even our usual morning routine didn't continue this way, I still wanted that tail.

The actual tail, I mean. Not the metaphorical bit you perverts. The way she wraps around me at night, tightening around just the right areas and warming up nicely, was the best cuddling I could have ever had. If not for her love and affection, or her beauty and sex appeal, the cuddling was why I loved her. Actually, that was why our mornings played out the way they did. With her tail wrapping this way and that, up, down, and all around, gluing my legs together or slipping between them, she could easily feel when man's favorite morning handicap extended in my pants. It actually helped our physical relationship progress.

The first time it happened was hilarious. The minute Miia felt the wood split in my pajama bottoms, she jumped out of bed screaming, and even hitting it since she thought it was an animal or something. You can imagine how much that hurt.

Once I had cleared it up with her, she inevitably began making obscene offers to me, wanting to help me "get rid of it" as an excuse to fool around. I had avoided it as long as I could, but then things got worse. With Miia sleeping in my room, she eventually started kissing me every morning just as she woke up and before she was really awake, almost sleep walking, so naturally, that would prevent the condition from going down on its own, so something needed to be done. We would make out, sure, but then after a serious talk two days into this routine, something I didn't think Miia was capable of, she showed me just what that tail could do.

Apparently, the tip of a lamia's tail is an erogenous zone. When she would use it to please me, it would also finish herself off as well. It was convenient- all of the success with none of the work.

Besides that, I didn't know if there was any correlation between the two, but Miia didn't start her subconscious kissing until after Rachnera moved in as if it were some kind of instinctive response to the competition. I never really thought about it too much, doing this sort of thing for a week since she had been living with us, but then she walked in. She actually walked in on us.

"Wakey, wakey! Eggs and bakey!" she squeaked happily, but then once she saw me hurriedly pulling my pants back and Miia covering her chest with the duvet, glaring ice at her, Rachnera giggled playfully at us, "Oh? Am I interrupting something?"

I don't know what came over me. I ended up saying something stupid, not in the sense that it created more drama, but in the sense that… no. You know what? It made no sense.

"I'm a vegetarian," I spat. I really wasn't, but I wanted to see what Rachnera would have done with that statement. We had established this kind of weird banter with one another, and had the same habit of never giving a straightforward answer unless it was either necessary or beneficial. We liked to talk. If nothing else, I could say that our biggest personality trait, at least comparatively is that we were both cunning. Also, I was trying to distract her from the scenario.

Does that thought process make sense? No? Didn't think so. It didn't make sense to me either, but I was also running on the power of orgasm denial, so "thinking" didn't really exist for me at the moment. Frowning, Rachnera eyed me suspiciously as she let that demonstratively false statement sink in, then grinned innocently as she came up with an answer.

"Wakey, wakey! Vegetables and sadness!" she reiterated. Would it be bad to say I fell off the bed laughing? Because I fell off the bed laughing.

"God dangit, Rachnera!" Miia shouted at her, pointing at her in accusation with one hand while the other covered her breasts with the blanket, her tail rattling angrily, "Would you get out of here?! You completely killed the mood!"

"I can see that," Rachnera said through a giggle, her fingers touching her chin thoughtfully, "I thought something was going between you two, but I didn't think you were actually doing something! This is so juicy. I wonder what Miss Smith would have to say about this."

Miia and I both froze. To say we were panicking about that would be an understatement since I was already plotting out any and every way I could keep her silent, murder being about half of them even though I knew I didn't stand a chance of succeeding at that goal.

"Rachnee…" I pleaded quietly, my eyes burning as if they were about to cry and if I were capable of that at this point in my life, "Please… Please don't… I don't know what I'd do without her…"

Rachnera frowned deeply at my begging, and perhaps it was just my panic and Miia crying over on the bed that made me read too much into it, but I thought I saw something more behind that frown. Rachnera's thinking face was a relaxed pout, but this? This seemed tense, and almost stressed out. Her eyes even widened in fright when she looked behind me at Miia, seeing her cheeks stained with tears. I couldn't be sure, but I hoped she was considering backing down. She liked to tease us. Did she realize that she went too far this time?

"Guys, relax," Rachnee said seriously, "I was kidding. I would never tell Miss Smith about this whole thing you guys have going on. You're happy together. Why would I ruin that? I didn't realize you guys were so worried about the law that a joke would have upset you so badly. I'm… I'm sorry."

We tried to relax. It slowly sunk in that Rachnera didn't actually mean what she said about reporting us, so my heart didn't still for awhile, and it Miia even longer to let the tears stop. Pulling my shirt back on, I followed Rachnera downstairs. We had to talk, and Miia taking the time to calm down from that joke created the proper opening for me and her to have some one on one time. As she and I cooked breakfast together, just some basic french toast with a side of crispy bacon and potatoes, we had the most tense conversation I had had about Miia since I met her.

"Thank you for keeping our secret, Rachnee," I started, using my pet name for her, "I can't tell you how paranoid we get sometimes about the wrong person seeing us do the wrong thing and us getting separated."

"The joke went a little far," Rachnera agreed, but even though her words had their usual trivial tone, she seemed tense. I raised my eyebrow. In this state, I could direct this conversation any way I wanted, and I figured it would have been best to ignore her own feelings at the moment and selfishly focus on my own.

"True," I noted, turning around and leaning against the counter, "But I can't imagine what that must have looked like to you. I hope I didn't scar you for life." Rachnera laughed. She never laughed. My raised eyebrow turned into a deep scowl, so I figured that I should probably try to get some info out of her. She was acting so weird.

"I can only imagine what seeing Miia's tail wrapped around my bong must have done to you," I said coyly, "I'm actually kind of impressed that you didn't run away screaming when you saw that." She continued silently chopping vegetables. "I mean, any sane person would have readily ripped our heads off. You'd think that with your reaction, that you actually liked what you saw." Rachnera harshly scraped the vegetables from the cutting board and into the sizzling pan. "And with your bondage fetish, I wouldn't rule out cucking for you."

"Kayo…" she warned. She had been calling me Honey ever since she moved into the house, so when I heard her use my real name, I knew I was in trouble. However, I didn't learn my lesson. This time, though, instead of pushing my limits with her since I knew she would've broken me at that point, I put my hand on the one she had wrapped around the handle of her pan, making her tense up.

"Rachnee… It's OK," I told her comfortingly, "You can tell me what's bothering you."

Rachnera was incredibly silent before answering. For a second, I wasn't sure if she was actually going to say anything, but after awhile, she made some kind of move. While I waited, she stared at her burning eggs. She had a far off look in her eyes that I felt like I should recognize the look in, but for some reason, I couldn't place it. Suddenly, she perked back up, her smile returning.

"It's OK," she said, "I promise it's fine. We can talk later about it, but for now, I don't want to think about this anymore."

I wasn't quite convinced. Something was clearly upsetting her, but she just wasn't telling me, and yet, if she didn't want to talk, I couldn't foce her, so I backed off and began setting the table while she threw out her ruined dish and bean making a new batch. It was just then that Miia came downstairs and joined us, and let me tell you that that was the most uncomfortable breakfast I had ever had in that house. Miia and Rachnera wouldn't talk to each other. They wouldn't even look at one another, and if at any point something was said, one of them always said it to me without even referencing the other. I guessed they still felt awkward about the whole thing.

They needed a distraction.

(...)

Call me foolish, but I decided to take Rachnera grocery shopping with me. Yes, I knew she was mad at me, and taking a giant spider for a walk in that scenario was probably not the smartest idea, but I had never really listened to common sense. More often, I fought against it, like now. Sure, I could have taken Miia with me instead because my ultimate goal was to separate them and try to ease the tension in the room, but I also wanted to find out was going through her head.

I wasn't going to push. If she wanted to tell me what was wrong, then she would, but at the very least, I wanted to try to comfort her, and apparently the best way to do it was to ride her.

As soon as we stepped out of the house, she wrapped me up and grabbed me. Now, given the circumstances I don't need to tell you that I thought she was going to kill me, but that thought was made even scarier when she pulled me into her chest, wrapped me up in her spinnerets, and began jumping from rooftop to rooftop until we made it into the city. She was laughing that low giggle of hers as she buried my face into her boobs, muffling my scream.

"Are you enjoying the ride, Honey?!" she screamed over the wind, her giggle turning into a cackle. I tried to struggle out of her grasp, but then she suddenly stopped. For a brief, confusing second, I thought she was going to let me down, but then she began moving her human hips against my crotch, her face contorting in false pleasure as she moaned loudly.

"Oh, yes, Honey! Right there!" she howled, and then laughed at my expense again before resuming her jumping, this time gagging my mouth.

Ask me any other day, and this would have been a turn on.

About five minutes later, Rachnera crashed to the ground, scaring a group of small children at the nearby playground and almost squashing a flock of pigeons. Setting me down, she cut my bindings off. I gave her a harsh look, but let the event slide, allowing the webbings to fall off of my body loosely, then looking around. This wasn't the grocery store. This was the park that was within walking distance of my house and in the complete opposite direction of the city.

"Wow! Aren't you a pretty one!" said a ragged voice off to the side, making us turn to see an elderly lady feeding the squirrels with a marionette of herself. She waved over at us, her eyes trained directly on Rachnera. "I wish I was still young and beautiful so I could those snazzy clothes you young ones wear!"

Rachnera smiled dumbfoundedly, placing her hands on her hips. As the last week had shown, she had dressed up the day she had moved in because the majority of her wardrobe was made up of elaborately designed loincloths and crop tops with plenty of underbood. It hardly left anything to the imagination. I could understand why a women in her late 70s would want to be young again so she could wear something like that in our more accepting time period. Rachnera scuttled over to her and bent down to speak with her, her fangs bared in a grin.

"You're not afraid of me?" she asked playfully, the question being genuine, "You're not blind are you? You can see the lower half of my body?"

"Of course I can, dear. These poor eyes of mine are old, but they still work just fine," the lady appraised, "I don't care whether you're a slime, a mermaid, or an arachne. You're all still people in my book. Here! Have a peppermint!"

As the squirrel just became aware of Rachnera's presence, sprinting off like it was the end of the universe, the woman reached into her purse and pulled a striped Christmas candy which the spider girl took gratefully, then examined it. Cutting it open with a hesitant look, she put it in her mouth and crunched immediately. I've made that mistake before and couldn't hold back the laughter that built up in my throat, and when Rachnera gave me that cold stare in return, I couldn't even give her a fair warning before her face contorted in pain.

"Oh! Would you look at the time!" our new friend gasped as she looked at the watch on the bottom of her wrist, "Looks like I have to go. I'll see you two lovebirds later if you're at the park tomorrow!"

For someone of her age, she could move pretty darn fast because before either Rachnera or I had a chance to say anything, the old lady was gone as though she wasn't even there to begin with. That quick disappearance mixed with the squirrels and marionettes was suspicious. That conversation only lasted a full minute at the most, and with everything she said and did, she seemed less like a human and more like some sort of goddess taking human form just so she could speak with us. Or maybe just a liminal species.

However, I wasn't stuck on her seemingly mystical powers. I was more caught up at the way she so nonchalantly called us lovebirds as if we really came off that way. Did we?

Suddenly, the same way I did with Miia when she first moved into the Ghirahim household, I caught myself staring at Rachnera's more monstrous features like her enormous rear end that I didn't know the real name for- I was still calling it a thorax -and her eight spindly legs. Her spinnerets were positioned exactly where and how a human's legs would be, but they ended in sharp hooks instead of feet. It raised a few questions. Nothing bad really, but the exact same thought process I had about lamia physiology when I met Miia was running through my mind watching Rachnera after the woman's exit.

That was what I was telling myself anyway. If I was being honest with myself, I was really just viewing her from a slightly different light than I had before, and was trying to figure out how that would work between us. It wasn't like I hadn't thought of her sexually before but this? This was different. It was a more serious consideration I was giving her, and since this made feel guilty since I was with Miia, I was trying to condition my brain into thinking this was just a natural curiosity.

"What are you looking at?" Rachnera said as she caught me staring.

Part of me was embarrassed to have been caught checking her out, but I wanted to try something. She had already proven herself to be an incredibly sexual and flirtatious person, and judging by her smirk, she wasn't too put off by my gaze. I decided to play around a bit and see how far I could go with her.

No, not sexually, you perverts.

"Your butt," I told Rachnera honestly. All eight of her red, pupilless eyes widened at my bold confession, but then her hand brought itself up to her cheek playfully as her smirk turned into a grin.

"Wow, really?" She teased, "You must be a real lecher to be turned on by my spider half." I knew she was joking, but if she knew that part of the reason Agent Smith thought bringing an Arachne into my house was because of my porn searches, she probably wouldn't have thought it was so funny.

"First of all," I started, "I'm not even going to deny that I'm a pervert. If I'm going to lie, I have to at least make it sound half convincing and that's a fight I would definitely lose. Second-" I considered for a moment telling her what I was really thinking about, "-you're not wrong. Again, if I'm going to lie, it needs to sound convincing. You're hot. There's no way around that. And lastly, I'm a human. I have two legs, no extra appendages, and my skeleton is on the inside. Obviously, this is going to make me question things about how all this works." I gestured vaguely to the lower half of her body.

"I guess that makes sense," Rachnera admitted, waltzing over to a bench and setting herself down, her legs and thorax wrapping itself around the bench, patting the seat next to her with a grin, "So, you think I'm hot?"

I blushed as I sat down next to her. The next part probably wasn't the best idea, but I decided to grab her hand and began playing with her claws, and this surprisingly made her own blush color her cheeks. Somewhere along the way, this banter had turned from a witty exchange to a romantic gesture. I was with Miia. This was making me increasingly uncomfortable, and admittedly, I was only making this worse.

"Like I said," I started, trying to make this sound as natural as possible, "You're beautiful. I can't lie about that. It would be way too unconvincing, and there are some fights even I'm not willing to have."

"Really? Because you seem to like starting them," Rachnera shot, ripping her hand away from mine but then pulling my head to her shoulder with it, "What would Miia say if she caught us right now?"

"She'd kill you, then she'd kill me," I said truthfully.

The only thing Rachnera did to respond to me was grunt quietly. Even though she was holding me against her, the grip wasn't at all affectionate or caring, instead being tight and cold. Looking up at her, she had this far off stare. Even her natural, caustic grin had fallen to be replaced by something much more melancholy and grim. Rachnera was a very harsh and cold person, but even in the week I had known her, I knew her well enough to know that she valued mental strength and intellect above all else. I decided to take advantage of that. I slapped her hand off of my shoulder and looked at her with the most terrifying gaze I could muster.

"Honey? What are you-" Rachnera started, but my hand to her cheek interrupted her.

"Rachnee, I want you to be honest with me, and I want you to give me a straight answer. No bull crap," I snapped, and she could only nervously nod at me, the most powerful monster girl I would ever meet too afraid to say anything, "What was going through your mind this morning at dinner? After you caught Miia and I-"

"Honey, stop," she insisted, pulling my hand away from her face and onto her chest, but I didn't accept her hesitation. Screw politeness. I needed to know what was on her mind, and I was going to push.

"You started acting cold and harsh to us, and that's not like you," I continued, "Normally, you're sarcastic, flirty, and have all these witty comebacks to me, but at breakfast, you looked like you were ready to kill us. Please, Rachnee. What's-"

I was about to ask her what was wrong, or what was running through her mind, but she beat me to the punch. She kissed me. Grabbing my neck and pulling me almost predatorily, she planted her lips against mine, public indecency be damned. Frankly, I didn't care about the witnesses in the park either. Actually, I was too stunned and caught off guard by her actions to do anything other than sit there allowing her to caress my lips with her own, mine rolling with hers naturally as if she was guiding them. Then, as quickly as she started, she stopped.

"There. You have your answer," she said, "Satisfied?" It took me a bit to respond.

"Extremely," I squeaked. I cleared my throat as Rachnera began giggling at me, then turned away with a proud smirk, her arms crossed over her chest.

"That doesn't have to be a one time thing, Honey," she said, 'You won't even have to break up with Miia if you want to keep this up, but if you want to keep her, it's best we don't tell her about this right away. On the other hand, we can pretend this never happened and continue life like normal. It's your choice."

I didn't answer, and Rachnera didn't even try to bring it up again, instead walking me back home. Truth was, I did want to do that again, and I felt terrible for it. And excited. The whole time we walked home, in place of my usual existential thought process, there was only one thing repeating to me in an internal monologue.

I was so boned.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Miia knew just how to distract me. Every morning routine with her was the same ever since she moved in. The first thing was waking up to see her entire body wrapped around my own, contstricting and threatening to snap me in half until she readjusted after I woke her up. Second, we'd enjoy a bit of cuddle time, and third, we would make out. Usually, that amazing tail of hers would wear me out too much to do much else than cook breakfast, but with someone else in the house now, I had to reorganize my mornings.

Once Miia had her fun, I'd go wake up Rachnera in the attic, and a new set of daily rituals would begin in much the same way. I would climb up and she would more often than not already be up, having made some hot chocolate in the Keurig Miss Smith had gotten her, and we would sit and chat for a few minutes. Miia liked to play and cuddle in the mornings. Rachnera, however, liked a bit of intellectual stimulation as we chatted about the dreams we had the night before, what kind of books we'd like to read, and general nonsense like that. Most of the time, though, I'd be tied to the chair. She said it helped her in the morning to relieve some stress on her spinner and would always cut me out after our talks, but I was pretty sure she was lying. That girl's bondage fetish was insatiable. Either way, it made her happy and it wasn't like I was too opposed to it, so as long as she didn't go too far passed stealing the occasional kiss from me, I didn't mind.

Oh, and we decided to continue our affair. Did I not mention that? The reason for that, though, was a bit different than me wanting to have two women at once, so it didn't originally start out as me two timing Miia, which I still felt kind of bad for.

After mine and Rachnera's stint in the park, courtesy of the spider's so brazen and unashamed acts of affection towards me, the ISEP had gotten a number of reports about us. Smith didn't even hesitate to jump down our throats for it. Miia and I had both been so terrified about what was going to happen that we were both ready to start killing government agents in an effort to escape from there, even going so far as to make the plan. We weren't going to go down willingly. We were so ready to die for each other instead of being separated that Miia even asked Rachnera to make a poison out of her venom that we could ingest to which the girl readily declined. Eventually, the spider had to tie us up to make sure we wouldn't do anything stupid.

Imagine our surprise when, after she was done chewing us out, Agent Smith said that we were allowed to get married. It was some kind of test case. According to her, the ISEP and the multitude of governments that had been taking part in the exchange program knew that romantic relationships would inevitably begin to occur among our societies. Apparently, this was already happening all around the world. With that known, everyone knew that the next step would be to allow these types of interactions to occur, and as such, Agent Smith went to bat for us and told us that we were going to need to get married so we could be a "test case" for this next amendment to the bill. We readily agreed.

That's when stuff hit the fan between Miia and Rachnera. Smith was required by law to read me the crime I was being arrested for and told my girlfriend that it was Rachnera I had been caught with, thus revealing what the lamia had thought to be cheating. Needless to say, Rachnera confessed her feelings towards me to Miia and was ready to fight for me. My house was nearly destroyed. We had been lucky Smith hadn't left yet when they began fighting so she could make an adjustment to our situation and tell us that Rachnera and I would be forced to date just as me and Miia were going to. However, she said it like she didn't know Miia and I were together.

"If Rachnera is interested in him too," she said nonchalantly, "Why don't we let her date him? He's going to marry one of you, so we might as well let him play the field a bit. We want to make sure that the additions made to the bill are made properly so everyone can be protected under it, and if it takes Kayo having more than one wife to do it, then I'm going to have to force you. Congratulations, Mr. Ghirahim! You now have two girlfriends."

We blinked. The air had pretty much been vacuumed out of my lungs at that phrase, and Miia looked like she was going to die. Even Rachnera looked shocked.

Turns out, once all was said and done, Miia was surprisingly OK with me dating more than one person as long as she was my number one, and she was. That much was never going to change. I was never even going to let this affair of ours continue until Miss Smith forced me to. Either way, Rachnera was an amazing girlfriend, even if it was mildly fake, and if I hadn't already been dating Miia for nearly a month before she moved in, I could easily see myself being her boyfriend.

While Miia was playful and energetic, Rachnera was calm and reserved. Whereas Miia valued charisma and romance, Rachnera responded to intellectualism and boldness. Even though you really couldn't compare one person to the next, I found myself being just as happy with Rachnera as I was with Miia, gaining from one what I couldn't get from the other. The relationship was fake, right? To be honest, it started that way. However, after another month and half of keeping up the charade (and a couple fiascos during the full moons), and after both of them sat me down and talked to me about it, after we had all gotten used to trying to put up a facade of romance for such a long time, mine and Rachnera's theatrical relationship turned into a real one.

What was the term for that? Polyamory? It was odd how it began, but it was incredible how pretending to have a three way relationship eventually turned into us actually creating one. Fake it till you make it, right?

Regardless, it had been months since I had been able to go out and try to get a good burn. You can't imagine how much convincing it took to make Miia let me go for a jog in the morning, but I think it would have taken a miracle to ease her anger if she ever caught who I had been meeting for the past two weeks.

"Oh, Dear God!" I groaned in massive amounts of pain, collapsing on the grass in the park in a heap of sweat, "Three miles never used to hurt this much."

"You've definitely gotten a bit of your stamina back if I don't have to carry you here anymore," said a playful voice accompanied by the clopping of hooves, "When I first met you, you had collapsed outside of the supermarket. How have you made so much progress in such a short time?"

"I used to be able to do this before I my homestays moved in with me," I explained, catching my breath enough to sit up on my elbows, "I used to run three miles every morning for my martial arts training until I had to turn my focus on integrating them into human culture, so I guess returning to that skill level wasn't as hard as reaching it the first time."

"If a centaur gets complacent, we have to spend years of training to return to our former level of skill," the busty horsewoman said, crossing her arms under her G cups, "Not that any of centaur kind would ever allow ourselves to dishonor our brethren by allowing that to happen."

"Meh, come off it, Cerea!" I pressed her, grabbing one of the training sabers she had attached to her, "You said you were going to train me. I didn't come here just for the great company and good view." I smirked, bouncing my head to follow her bouncing breasts as she galloped toward me, returning my threatening look.

"En garde, Pervert!" she declared.

This had been a routine ever since she had found my unconscious body in the shopping district by my house, having hit my limit after trying to push myself too hard. According to her, I didn't ride her. Apparently that's some kind of major taboo in centaur culture for a centaur to allow anyone other than her master to ride them, but the way she explained it, it didn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Still, no means no, so I didn't push the issue. What I did push for was for her to train me in hema martial arts since I had always wanted to learn how to use a sword. I always lost our sparring matches, but I was learning pretty quickly. Her direct hits had turned to passing grazes. Her clean disarms of my weapon deteriorated into her creating an opening for me to attack from, an opening I would never actually hit.

Aside from the training, I wasn't kidding about the great company. Centorea was strong and passionate and energized me at my very core, making me feel like I could take on the world. She made me feel powerful. In her words, she made me feel like a knight of one of the old kingdoms, especially with her speeches of honor and chivalry.

Not to mention that she had this kind of pure and innocent beauty to her. Her glorious hair was as gold as the sun and flowed like a majestic waterfall, and her features were soft and fair, much like Rachnera's but much kinder, giving her the impression of a motherly type. I felt comfort with her. I would never hesitate to call this girl my friend, and if it ever came down to it, I would die fighting for her. Not to mention that those boobs of hers were amazing. It was too bad I didn't know I would actually have to fight for her, or I might have grabbed a real weapon.

"Look what we have here!" came an obnoxiously loud voice, "Some piece of crap and his slut horse!" I cringed. I recognized that voice. Centorea and I turned to the source of the noise to see the same hood rat who I beat up on my first date with me, the same girl from back then on his arm, but five other men trailing behind them. This wasn't a random attack. I could tell based on the way they were all looking like they had just found a fish out of water.

"You all should leave," Centorea called to them, having picked up her real sword with her hand poised to draw it, "This park is a family setting, and the police will not hesitate to drag you off if you make a scene." The gang looked around the area. It was hardly passed six o'clock in the morning, so there was no one out right now. No witnesses. There was no way I was going to get out of this without a fight, which meant I couldn't let Cerea get involved.

"I don't see anyone around," the leader said, cracking his knuckles, "So, since no one is going to catch us, why don't we have a little fun with you, too? We would just have to ignore your horse's ass."

At that line, a vein began to pop out of my forehead, and I could feel myself beginning to lose control. Centorea grimaced. Her hand was now fully wrapped around the hilt of her blade as the thugs continued to walk toward us, ready to kill if necessary.

"Kayo? Do you know these guys?" she asked cautiously, whispering to me.

"What do you think?" I shot back venomously, "Let me handle this. If you get involved, then you'll be breaking the Interspecies Exchange Bill. I'll protect you Cerea."

The truth was that I wouldn't. Six on one were impossible odds in real life, but I could hopefully give her enough time to get away. There was only one thing I needed to keep in mind- some fights are unavoidable, but if you know you have absolutely no choice, you hit first and you hit hard. I stepped up to them. I didn't try to say anything to them since words would get me nowhere with this. When they were within range, I swung my sword. The wooden staff didn't even last against the guy's thick skull, snapping in half, but knocking him out in the process with blood spilling on the grass.

I didn't waste my advantage. The element of surprise was on my side, so I took the chance and jumped forward, dipping down and grabbed another guy with an arm under his crotch, using one of the more dangerous judo techniques. I didn't care if I killed him. I couldn't afford the luxury of worrying about the future consequences. With a twist of my hips and shoulder, I threw the guy onto the ground, hearing a pop. I dislocated his shoulder. He rolled on the ground in pain.

"Kayo!" Centorea warned.

I didn't know what that meant and suffered from it. A hard object hit the back of my head and I went down right away, the pummeling coming right after. Kicks to my ribs, my groin, and my face. All I could really do at this point was cover my body as best I could and hope for the best. My body was tough with muscle and conditioned to take a beating like this, but I couldn't stay down there. I had to move. If I stayed on the ground, then I would be doing nothing more than creating an opening for them. When most of them backed off to catch their breath, I rolled to the side, getting a kick to the face but able to take it, and stood back up.

On the way, I almost got kicked again, but grabbed his foot. I pivoted and punched the side of his knee as hard as I possibly could, ripping the tendons in half and making him scream as he fell over, then received a number of jabs to my jaw. I righted myself. I had to keep backing up as the two pushed me, but I kept my hands up and managed to block. Maybe they saw that and used it. The third guy locked my arms behind my back and let the other two go to town on me, but did you think I was done? I wasn't going to give up. I wanted to survive. I kicked off with my feet and wrapped them around one guy's neck, only for him and the other to throw me off to the side.

I had been broken. It took way too long for me to stand back up and I was too dazed to put up any real fight. Why they didn't take that free kill, however, was the best thing I could have hoped for.

There was one guy coming at me with his arm raised and screaming his head off, but he never made it to me since from the branches of the tree next to me came a line of web. He shot off into the sky. Not even two seconds later, he dropped to the ground in a ball of string. It looked like not only had the other two conscious thugs been tied up, but everyone in their group had shared that fate, all six of the men and the leader's girlfriend being stacked over to the side where Miia was staring at me with a look of fear.

"Darling?!" she cried and ran over to me. I was expecting her to crash into me and tackle me to the ground, but she stopped just short, her chest pressed against mine and her hands cupping my cheeks. "Darling, are you OK?! What happened here?! You look terrible!"

I had a wild look in my eyes. My fight or flight instinct had by no means subsided when she grabbed me, but at the same time, my instincts knew Miia was a friend. I didn't hurt her. I didn't strike her or put her into a pressure lock, but I did push her away violently.

"Get off! Don't touch me!" I shouted at her. I didn't put any kindness or compassion into my words, giving her the harshest tone possible. I even went back to my fighting stance. Miia's hands shot up to her chest defensively, a look of hurt and betrayal in her eyes as they began to tear up. Her tail began coiling around her fretfully. It was like she was trying to shrink herself so she could go unnoticed or protect herself.

"Darling…? I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" she tried.

"Just shut- shut up! Stop talking… please…" I wanted to keep fighting. I really, really wanted to shout Miia down and let her know how much of a worthless existence she was, and when I realized just how the situation developed, it sunk in that I was still ready to kill. I hated myself for it. Physically, I was exhausted and damaged, but mentally, it was my readiness to attack Miia that really broke me. I dropped to the ground and began to sob uncontrollably.

Everything hit me at once. There were six guys looking to hurt me, and I managed to take out three of them with some of the most brutal techniques I knew, and I didn't even hesitate to use them. They wouldn't have approached me if I didn't fight their leader that first time. Not only that, but if helped hadn't come, there was no telling just how this might have ended, and it made me think that these guys were going to kill me.

I apologized profusely to Miia as she sprinted over to me and wrapped me up protectively. I couldn't stop saying "I'm sorry." She couldn't stop hugging and kissing me.

"Jeez, you'd think we would get a thank you for saving you, but no," Rachnera mused from the top of the tree, propping her head up on a tree branch with a bored expression, "You have to attack Miia like that."

"Rachnee, calm down! He didn't mean it!" Miia defended him, "He's been through enough."

"You're right, and you know why?" Rachnera demanded, jumping to the ground with a murderous glint in her six eyes as she stepped over to Centorea, "It's because this idiot over here decided to let them do what he wanted to him without even trying to step in."

"What are you implying?!" Centorea spat, actually drawing her sword now, "That I just wanted to let this happen?!"

"You could have stopped it! Don't pretend you don't know how to use that sword!" Rachnera shot back, "And you're a centaur! Six humans are nothing to you!"

"If I had fought them, I would have broken the rules of the Interspecies Exchange Bill! I didn't have a choice!"

"It's not like it matters if no one finds out! Would you rather let someone die if saving them meant breaking the law?!"

I guess the fire in me hadn't yet subsided, because I wasn't about to let this continue. Both of them were my friends. Both of them looked like they were ready to kill one another, and I was going to do whatever it took to stop them. I pulled myself out of Miia and jumped in between them.

"Both of you shut up! Just shut up!" I snarled at them, "Enough of you! I've had it! I've had enough! You're not allowed to fight! Go… Go screw yourselves…"

That was the last bit of energy I had. I figured I at least had a few hours left in me, but apparently trying to stop a fight from two dangerous people was all it took to exhaust me to the point of passing out, hitting the ground with a loud thud. The last thing I remember was all of them surrounding me.

"It's alright, Darling!" Miia called to me, "Just hang on!"

(...)

Two days after the fight and I had healed past the point of bed rest. Rachnera had carried me home, Centorea helping the authorities handle my attackers and dealing with the ISEP when they had come to talk with her. Agent Smith showed up to my house when the fight was over, but fortunately, instead of chewing me out for doing something so stupid or lecture me about putting a group of monsters into a scenario like that, she had the decency to ignore the drama while she stitched me up. She knew I didn't want to hear it. She actually mentioned that it was kind of brave.

Now that I could walk around the house, even if it was on a crutch despite me being unaware when in the brawl the leg injury occurred, I spent a lot of time in the living room. That's where the best TV was, and the kitchen was only a quick hobble away. That was only for quick snacks. Since I didn't trust Miia or Rachnera in the kitchen, we ordered out for almost every meal while my injuries healed. It was great. I felt like I had just been in a tornado once the adrenaline allowed the pain to sink in, and I looked at least half as bad, but the three square meals of pizza, chinese, and greek was incredible, as well as the fact that I didn't have to cook.

Speaking of Miia and Rachnera, they kept a good eye on me. Miia was a little forceful in her nursing, demanding that I keep my injured leg and my broken arm propped up, scolding me to stay comfortable, and constantly making sure I got fluids, but as pushy as she was, I enjoyed the attention. I wouldn't let her know, but I loved her taking care of me. The only thing that I asked her to make better was for her to cuddle me, which she was afraid to do at first, so I put my foot down and made her do it like a spoiled princess. She tried to hold back her smile, but I could tell she loved the command. I knew she was missing the physical contact. It took a few tries, though, for us to find a position that was both comfortable and would keep my injured limbs elevated.

In pure contrast to Miia's overbearing care style, Rachnera was slightly detached from the whole thing. She kept saying she didn't care, that I had everything taken care of, and she kept repeating that I was fine and that the intense, around the clock babysitting wasn't necessary, and I had to pull Miia aside to tell her what was really going on through Rachnera's head. Rachnera just wasn't showing how worried she really was. I pointed out that ever since I got home, she had been spending an inordinate amount of time out of her room. She was an introvert, but lately, she spent almost every minute of every day in the living room with us, being a gopher if I asked for something, chatting with us on the couch, playing Mario Kart and Smash Bros 4, but any time we asked, she would deny caring about my injuries.

I faked a scream at one point. She was checking me over long before Miia had even made it back to the couch.

Pretty late in the third day of my recovery, a knock came at the door and Miia jumped up to grab it, thinking it was the pizza guy. I wished it was the pizza guy. Instead, it was Miss Smith whom we greeted warmly, but then a cold chill spread through the room when he saw her being followed into the house buy Centorea herself. Miia and Rachnera looked ready to commit meticulously premeditated murder. Nervously, the centaur took a place in the corner of the room while Agent Smith explained the situation to us.

"I'm sure that event is fresh in all of your minds," Agent Smith stated in the obvious, "Which is why I brought Centorea here so I don't have to explain this twice and can get on with the rest of my life." My good arm around Miia's shoulders, I glanced at the Centaur who was burning a hole in the ground with her eyes.

"Those idiots deserve what they got," Rachnera dismissed, "I'm not apologizing."

"Actually, this much isn't about you, Rachnera," Smith declared, making us all blink at the unexpected reveal, "Not entirely anyway."

"Then, if you're not here to tell us that we're in trouble, why are you here?" Miia asked innocently.

"Because I need to tell you what is going to happen at this point with them so we can close this case. That's why I brought Centorea along since she's into this deeper than you all are." We looked over at her. She looked up from her living room floor fire and over to Smith with a bewildered expression.

"I am?" she asked. Smith nodded.

"Yes. According to your own reports, and a confession of one of the individuals in question, some statements and threats were made," the girls straightened up at the implication, Centorea actually being there to remember it, "Since those threats were taken out on Kayo, and since you were in constant danger yourself Centorea, this matter has been taken to the federal level." Smith looked up from her file at that point and took off her sunglasses so we could see the gleeful glint in her eye. "That means none of you will have to suffer from any legal repercussions. You won't even have to testify against them if you don't want to since this has become an international issue."

We all cheered when she said that. It had been the biggest source of stress for us over the past few days, and it was a huge relief to know that not only were none of us in trouble, but that they would be going to prison without us even having to fight against them in court. They would be getting due process, of course, but that would be in centaur courts, not Japanese. Miia pulled me over and kissed me. Even Rachnera let loose her normally controlled persona to let out a laugh of joy, then took her turn kissing me. I saw Centorea blush at those actions.

"Also, in addition to that- Centorea," Miss Smith continued, turning to my sensei, "You also won't be getting deported. Since this issue had nothing to do with the homestay program, and considering the complexity of the situation, your home country is allowing you to stay in Japan."

"I have something to say!" Centorea announced. Once Smith had finished telling Centorea's side of things, even though the agent clearly wanted to add one more thing to it, Centorea took the floor. Standing up from her kneeling position, she stepped to the center of the room, wanting to have all of our attention. I can promise you we did.

"Huh? What's up, Cerea?" I asked her. Miia frowned at my nickname for the woman, but didn't say anything since she knew my feelings towards the woman.

"I… I want to stay here as part of the homestay program!" she announced with finality. I did a spit take ver Miia's tail.

"Darling!" she whined. I waved her off.

"Hold on, what?!" I demanded. I knew she didn't have a host family due to the traditions of centaur culture but… "Why?!" I followed up.

"I… I know you were training in the sword under me, but your willingness to protect me has made me realize something," she said in a rush, her head bowing low, "You are a true warrior, and I could never hope to match you! Kayo, I want you to… I want you to be my master, and I would like to be your knight, if you will have me."

There was so much wrong with it. A master and knight? I was a true warrior that she could never hope to match? I wasn't sure which of this was an exaggeration, which was centaur cultural jargon, and which was complete and utter malarkey, and I had no idea where to begin. I couldn't even stop Miia and Rachnera from jumping up and starting a shouting match. After what had happened, it wasn't that they wanted nothing to do with Centorea, but it was more like they didn't want another girl moving into the household. Especially not Centorea. If anyone was going to be moving in with them, it was not going to be someone who had just pledged their undying loyalty and boundless love to him as his slave. At least that's how they took it.

"Oh this is just too rich!" Agent Smith cackled on the couch, clutching her side. We turned to her.

"You know something don't you?" I demanded, the same crazy look from the fight twisting on my face again, "Spill it."

"The condition the centaur government has for Centorea to stay in this country is for her to find a host family," the agent didn't hesitate to say, "But that host family has to be you, or else she will be deported."

I don't even need to tell you what happened next. You already know. I crashed into Centorea with a huge hug, not even bothering to crawl over with my crutch.

"Welcome to the family!" I shouted at her. As far as I was concerned, she already was my family, but this more or less made it official.

Now, the only question was if she could survive her time here because I could feel Rachnera's and Miia's glares digging into the back of my head like a power drill.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

If I was being honest with you, Reader, I'm a pretty tough guy both physically and mentally, but when your friends pitch you crap, the line between bullying and having fun can be blurred. Sometimes it's all in good fun, other times you can be legitimately hurt by it. Even then, you don't really feel like you can say anything sometimes because they're your friends, and you don't want to wreck the friendship by coming off as over sensitive. That can sometimes sting worse than the words themselves.

Mid afternoon, almost two months after the debacle with Centorea had been resolved, one of my friends asked me for my help moving into a new apartment. He was fine, but his homestays, girls whom I love dearly like little sisters, are normally pretty rough. Today, they were just brutal.

Perhaps you could say that I was to blame for not even attempting to stop them, but either way, I needed a nap, and maybe a cuddle session, but not from either Miia or Rachnera. I needed Centorea.

After her confession of loyalty and declaration of fealty, Miss Smith got the construction crew back into my house within 24 hours, expanding the rooms again, but not the halls or doorways since those had already been widened for Rachnera. While she and I tried to ease the minds of my girlfriends, they broke into the upstairs guest room and turned it into a feudal Japanese cottage which made Centorea squeal when she saw it. The room aside, though, it became a near permanent mission to make sure she wasn't killed by the others. The biggest problem was her. Whether it be stopping Rachnera from using her webs on me or preventing Miia's nearly violent form of affection, she took her role as a knight way too seriously. Every mistake I pointed out practically destroyed her, and any fun was quickly dashed in a misguided effort to protect me. Both of the senior homestays were close to snapping.

It wasn't until I got really stern with her that things finally sunk in that she was going too far. As my "knight," or some other nonsense, she wanted to do her best to serve me, but what she was doing was the complete opposite of good service. She was overzealous and far too meticulous to be any good. I knew she had good intentions, but if doing what was right and justifiable ended at our intent, then we could justify the most horrible atrocities this world has ever seen all because the people that carried them out meant well. Sure, that's an extreme example, but the point still stands- she meant well, but she wasn't doing well.

I scolded her. I let her know all of her faults in one sitting, not in the form of individual wrong doings, but instead as a lecture on how she carried her duties and the thoughts that came with them. I let her know to allow me to do my thing and not hover over me like she was. I let her know how I felt about the girls that I was already staying with, and the kinds of things we did together (much to each of their chagrin) and made it a point to tell her to back off.

Most importantly, I gave her praise. This wasn't a punishment I was giving her, nor was it any kind of blind rage I was expressing, but constructive criticism, and the only way to do that was to tell her about what she did right, then proceed to show her what she could be doing better. I made sure she knew I appreciated her help. Not only that, but my advice wasn't just a blind proclamation of "please do better," but instead, I told her specifically what points she could improve on, where, and how. What's the point of constructive criticism if it isn't, you know, constructive?

Her improvement was immediate. Overnight, I found myself back to my normal routine with nightly bindings, morning relief, and post-relief coffee with more bindings, and outside of that, Centorea helped me work my training back into my mornings while still satisfying the others. Since I could ride her now, as her master, it made working out really easy. Who knew that horseback riding could build so much muscle?

The best part about this, however, was that since Centorea was no longer attached to me at the hip outside of our sparring sessions and wake up jogs, her relationship improved tremendously with the girls. Miia and Centorea practically fell in love, becoming best friends over the course of a week thanks to their mutual love of martial arts and Centorea's inquiry of how to better serve the household (which made Miia feel like the matron of the house, thus earning the centaur gooey, fudgy brownie points with the lamia). She had a few more problems with Rachnera, however, but they managed OK. I didn't think the two would be friends any time soon, being completely conflicting characters, but at least they were civil towards one another. Frenemies? A rough friendship?

I didn't really care at that point at night if I was being honest with myself. In the state I was in, stumbling into the building with an emotional hangover from my friend's two homestays and sporting the physical fatigue of moving, I needed the woman's motherly, caring personality. Miia would be too rough, and Rachnera wasn't good with comfort. Sure, I could give them a chance. Once Miia realized that she didn't have to snap any of the other girls in half, she would most likely immediately wap around me in the protective way I love, and I could easily teach Rachnera that the best way to comfort me was to scratch my back and play with my hair, but I wasn't in the mood for that crap. I headed straight for Centorea's room.

"Master! Good evening," Centorea greeted me with a smile, wearing a purple kimono she wore at night, her hair down and cleaning her replica sword, "What can I do for you?"

"Don't get up!" I said hurriedly, making her sit back down as she was about to do that weird social custom of standing up when someone enters a room, "I um… I was wondering if I could hang out with you for awhile?"

"Of course, Master! You're always welcome in my room," Centorea declared honorably, a hand on her chest and speaking with passion, then getting nervous, 'Unfortunately, I don't have anything I can entertain you with."

"I've got my Liam Neeson collection and a dozen bags of popcorn already prepared downstairs," I said without missing a beat, "I'll grab a few blankets and meet you down there."

Two minutes later, she and I were in the living room with the lights turned off, resting on the floor, and Taken 2 playing on my flat screen. Centorea knelt down in front of the couch after we moved the coffee table aside, having put on a tank top that was working like its life depended on it while I snuggled up next to her, a blanket over my legs and a bowl of popcorn at my side at just the right angle for both of us to reach.

"You're taking this movie in surprisingly well," I noticed.

"Ugh, Master! Why wouldn't I?" the centaur shot at me.

"You seem offended," I said flatly but with a teasing smile.

"Just because I train extensively in martial arts, doesn't mean I can't appreciate the fine choreography in an action movie fight scene, no matter how unrealistic it might be!" she proclaimed, crossing her arms and turning up her nose.

"I was referring to the fact that this movie is undeniably terrible compared to the first one," I pointed out, "I didn't say anything about martial arts."

"Um- well- you see- I-" Centorea stammered, a blush growing on her cheeks.

"The fact that you think I was seems like a you issue." I couldn't help my grin as she kept stuttering. "Seriously, I wasn't even thinking that. Did you assume I was, Miss Cerea? Do you doubt your ability?" She gasped.

"I do not!" she squeaked. I laughed and turned into her, guffawing into her side as she grumbled and put an arm around my shoulder almost reflexively. I leaned into it. Shortly after she used the one arm came the second, and then I found myself pressing back against her glorious knockers like they were fluffy pillows as we began watching Star Wars 1.

"So, essentially, this takes place during the time of the Old Republic but just as it was ending into the new," I explained to Centorea with my limited and often wrong knowledge of Star Wars lore, "This was when battle droids were the epitome of military technology since they were inexpensive and expendable, but the real thing about Star Wars, or what most people are into anyway, are the Jedi. I could talk for hours on that topic alone." That last bit of bravado was entirely true, but chances are I would only be right about half of it at best.

"The jedi are the ones using the light sabers, correct?" Centorea asked.

"I'm surprised you remember what the weapons are called and not the people who use them," I noticed.

"Any weapon enthusiast knows what a lightsaber is," Centorea said normally, "But I never even heard of the Jedi until watching this movie. Who is Liam Neeson's character in this one again?"

"Qui-Gon Jinn," I introduced proudly before getting into a movie long spiel over the morality, ethics, and politics of the Jedi versus the Sith, the origins of the Je'daii, and most importantly, Qui-Gon's problems with the Jedi Order and how he can be consider 'Grey' instead of Light or Dark. Come to think of it, I hadn't seen Episode 8 yet, but wasn't that what the Last Jedi was about? Ending the Jedi Order, or something?

Somewhere along my explanation that ended alongside the Phantom Menace, I had to get up to go to the bathroom, and when I returned, having been fully cheered up by spending most of the night alone with Centorea, I jumped on her back and wrapped her in a hug. She screamed so loud, I thought she might have woken the others up. Giggling, I nuzzled my face in her hair and tightened my hold on her waist.

"You're adorable, you know that?" I said playfully, "You're so on edge. Seriously, Cerea. Relax." On one hand, I could feel her lean back against me. On the other hand, I could feel her shaking and her whine at how much she regretted breaking her knightly code.

"Gah! How can I be having these thoughts about my master?!" she moaned, "It is imprudent for a knight to engage in these activities!"

"Why don't I put in the next movie?" I said, my chuckling never dying down, "How about… The A-Team?"

"Yes, please…" Centorea whimpered after a minute of self reflection, but then gasping again just after I put the movie in and returning to my previous seat, "Master, what are you doing?!"

"So, what?" I said sternly, raising my eyebrow as I ran my fingers through her hair, "I can cuddle you against your side and your chest, but the minute I try to cuddle you on your back, it's a problem?"

"N-no, but-" she hushed when I rubbed my head against her hair again.

"Cerea," I said gently, "I know what's going through your head right now."

"You…" she said, breathing heavily, "You do?" I nodded against her.

"But do you think you can deal with this for a bit longer?" I asked kindly, "This is… it feels right, and I'm comfortable like this."

"W-well if you're comfortable, I can grab a pillow for you to sit on to make it more so for you?" she offered. I laughed against her.

"That's not what I meant," I whispered, "Just this once, do you think that my knight can have just a bit of inappropriate feelings for her master? If it helps..." I gulped, my volume failing me. "You don't have to be my knight for tonight. Please?"

Centorea went silent for awhile, which is pretty much par for the course with her when something tense like this happens. She doesn't speak when things get difficult. When I tried to teach her Five Card, which was a little manipulative on this front on my part, the girl had no poker face and ended up losing all of the cheetos we had been betting with in her second hand. She was silent for so long that I figured she was either going to pass out or buck me off, but then she began moving again. She leaned back into me hard. I was surprised for a second, but then I realized that wasn't going to hurt me, and was instead choosing to cuddle against me, yet knowing that, I still yelped when I saw her hand move. I thought she was grabbing her sword, but she ended up placing a brush in my hands.

"Could you do my hair?" she asked, letting her hair down metaphorically while I grabbed a loose handful of her physical hair.

"Sure," I said, grinning madly, then following up with a bad Brooklyn accent, "So, tell me all about your day, Dah-lin. How ya doin?" She smiled triumphantly and laughed only once.

"I'm doing fine, but there is one thing that has been bugging me for awhile," she said coyly.

I raised my eyebrow curiously. Where was this side of her normally? I hadn't seen her more casual and friendly side directed towards me this way since before she moved in, and it was a welcome change. She seemed like a real person. I wanted that to last as long as possible, but normally, she was so straight forward and genuine. Guile like this wasn't something I'd see her using. I could read her like an open book before, but now, I was so curious what was on her mind.

"Yeah?" I asked, my voice back to normal as I ran that brush through her silken locks, "What's that, Dear?"

"Oh, you know the usual story," Centorea toyed, "There's this guy I like but he's totally clueless about it. Actually, knowing him, he knows all about how I feel about him, but I don't think he knows he can make a move any time he wants."

I choked on my own saliva. That's what she was thinking about?

"Can he now?" I said after a gulp, "That's news to me. I would think that if you wanted something like that to happen, knowing you, nothing would have stopped you."

"It's true that certain things have gotten in the way," Centorea said, a frown etching her brow, "For starters, he's already in a relationship with two other women, and we have a more professional relationship than most would think, and both of those present their challenges. The only way anything would happen is if he allows it."

"What do you mean 'allows' it?" I asked, not thinking my words through for a second and kicking myself when I realized I gave her the upper hand in this weighty banter.

"He will have to make the move," she said, smiling and leaning back against me, grabbing and wrapping my arms around her waist, "I've been honest with him about my feelings, let's say about four seconds ago, so if he wants anything to happen between us, then it will be his choice. I… I don't just want to be his knight. I'm fine sharing him with more than one woman since I know I will hold my own special place in his heart, but as his knight, I can't do anything about my feelings if they aren't reciprocated. He knows how I feel. There's nothing else to say now. If he wants it be, then…"

Would you think better of me if I said I hesitated to give an answer? Because I didn't wait. In fact, Centorea had gotten so far into my head that she was strangling my tongue with my brain stem, and had broken me. Normally, I'm in complete control of myself and my emotions, my mind being an impenetrable fortress of steel, and always working any conversation to my favor, yet somehow, Centorea had taken the reigns. She had taken my control and snapped it like a twig, and the worst part was that I wasn't even sure how. Maybe pretending to talk about someone else ruined me. Maybe it was the way she was snuggling up against my chest, her head digging its way under my chin the whole time we talked. Either way, when I gave her my answer, it wasn't controlled. When I gently cupped her chin while straddling her back, when I turned her head to mine, the kiss I gave her was passionate and inflamed with romance.

It wasn't a long kiss, though. As hot and fiery as it was, it was twice as brief, and our lips pulled away from each other with a smack, a line of saliva splitting between us as our faces flushed. We panted heavily, unable to look each other in the eyes, but still pressing them against each other.

"So…" I started, breaking the silence before it even had a chance to be awkward, "Thanks for staying up with me." She laughed breathlessly as she reached up and stroked my cheek.

"It was so worth it," she agreed, then yawned heavily while her body grew limp against me, "But I am so tired now."

"Me too…" I seconded.

It didn't matter whether it was the kiss or the fact that we had been up for hours. While sitting there on the floor, myself still straddling Centorea's back, we were too tired to pull away from each other and fell asleep in the center of the living room.

(...)

"Well, aren't you two cute?" Rachnera's voice woke us up. I opened my heavy and tired eyes, the lids feeling like they were glued together. When my vision became fully functional, I saw the spider girl standing at the entrance to the gathering area with an amused smirk on her face, her arms crossed loosely over her chest while Miia had her fists balled tightly at her sides. Although, the more rambunctious girl was wearing a jealous look that contradicted her angry stance.

"How could you guys have a movie night without us?!" she whined, "I would have joined you if you asked me! I could have gone the whole night without sleep!" Laughing, I threw my leg over Centorea's back and stepped over to the brat, cupping her cheek and kissing her lightly.

"I'm sorry, Love," I told her honestly, "I thought you were asleep by the time I got home." She pouted and pecked me one more time.

"You're lucky you're cute," she grumbled, then slithered over to her centaur roommate to help her put the living room back together.

"What happened last night?" Rachnera said, leaning down to hug me over my shoulders, practically head locking me. I grabbed her wrists lightly.

"What do you mean?" I replied curiously, but I already had a feeling I knew what she was getting at.

"You're staring at Centorea like you want to tickle her and find her 'special tickle spot,' and she's looking at you the same way," Rachnera mentioned, her voice in a low whisper so Miia and Centorea didn't break their pleasant conversation after hearing her, "Something happened. I want to know what you may be hiding."

I knew I couldn't hide this from her. I also knew I had to tell her the truth about this because if she could get that web-whip into her hands without me even noticing, particularly when her hands had been in front of me that whole time, I would be in for a world of bad-hurt if I lied.

"You remember when you confessed your feelings to me?" I asked. Rachnera jumped away from me with her hands to her lips, moving just slowly enough to not be noticed by the others.

"Oh, my. She didn't, did she?" she asked.

"She did," I said through a nod, "And I'm not going to lie. It was pretty romantic last night when it happened. That said, I'm going to make breakfast so we can all chat about this. I'm not about to hide this from you."

Miia watched me cross the room into the kitchen with a dumbfounded look on my face. I accepted that Rachnera was trying to be discrete about this, not for my behalf but to try to blackmail me, but I raised my voice so everyone could hear me. Not only did this need to be said, and Centorea knew it as well, but I wasn't about to let Rachnera have that kind of hold on me. Miia's tail swayed back and forth bemusedly.

"Hey, Cerea? What's he talking about?" she asked the horse girl. With the broken poker face of a horny knight, all the blonde could do was laugh nervously while the other two girls glared daggers at her. Almost protectively, she jumped over to me and handed me her sword.

"Save yourself," she whispered intently. It probably wasn't my best idea, but having just woken up, it seemed like pure gold to pull her head down and kiss her, only to hear the blood curdling screams of the innocent behind the half wall to the kitchen, and running out to see Miia passed out on the floor with Rachnera standing over us with an exasperated look.

"So, we have some stuff we need to talk about," I pointed out, grabbing Centorea's hand and leading her to the table.

"Obviously," Rachnera said. She was the only one who didn't yelp when Miia jumped back up in pure furry.

"Centorea!" she shouted, only to get restrained by Rachnera in Total Defeat.

"Start from the beginning, Honey," Rachnera said innocently, sitting at the table with a threatening smile, "And we'll decide what gets to happen from here."

The wording of that last phrase, "We'll get to decide what happens here." may have sounded harsh to some people, but in a relationship like ours, you had to talk about things like this, and if one person wasn't going to consent to bringing in another partner, then any respectable boyfriend wouldn't. I knew something like this was going to happen when I chose to kiss Centorea. She knew it as well. This conversation would get to decide where the household would go in the future, and ultimately define Centorea's fate in the exchange program, and knowing that, neither of us backed down when we explained our feelings for one another.

It didn't go well at first, but in the end, they were surprisingly understanding.


	8. Chapter 7

**(A/N) I know I said no author's notes for this book, but I want to let all of the new readers know that I wanted to try a new story telling method for this chapter, hence the harsh narration shift. That is all. Carry on.**

Chapter 7

Is this thing on? Can you hear me? This is voice text right?

Hello, Reader! My name is Miia Ghirahim, and I'm the first and most important exchange student in the household of my Darling, Kayo Ghirahim. I guess you could call me the Queen of the Kingdom since I will be marrying him very soon! It doesn't matter how many girls he starts dating! I will be his wife!

Speaking of that, Darling is such a mad genius. A few days ago, after he revealed to me and Rachnera that he and Centorea had begun dating, a revelation that I had been worried about for months and became mortified when it actually happened, he was so quick to stop us from fighting. It was just me and Centorea arguing really, since Rachnera is a misanthrope, but Darling had the perfect idea how to handle that cow's intrusion. It turns out, unlike in lamia culture, humans can only have on legal wife. There are some countries and religions where people have more than one wife, but the governments they live under won't allow them to have more than one wife at a time, so they end up living as if they really are married. That means that Darling will have to marry me and I'll be his only wife!

Rachnera had been OK with their relationship from the beginning, but Darling's promise to propose to me (whether he realized that's what he did or not) is only the first thing that convinced me to allow Centorea to share Darling with us. Then, my Darling told me she would still be his knight, and even though she would be his girlfriend too, she would still be nothing more than a servant. Darling is so considerate!

Still, I appreciated it whenever she left the house to go for one of her runs, and as that day would have it, Darling sent her on a grocery run while we hung our freshly washed laundry on his roof.

"Rachnee, you could help, you know," I told Rachnera disappointedly, "We're doing all the work over here." The spider girl was currently sitting in the shade of one of the many canopies Darling had built on the roof, looking as though she was falling asleep.

"Sorry, Miia, "she said breathily, "Most arachne are diurnal species, but no matter how you look at it, our chitin and the sun just do not mix. I hope you understand."

"It's OK, Rachnee," Darling said to her as he clipped one of his dress shirts to a clothes line, "I've got this. Hey, Miia, why don't you take a break too? I can finish this up on my own?"

"Are you sure?" I asked him disappointedly. I wanted to spend more time with him. This type of household busy work made us feel like a real married couple!

"I'm sure," he said with a grin that made my balance point go weak, "I'll grab you both some lemonade when I'm done here." For those of you unversed in lamia biology, our balance point is the spot on our lower snake halves on the ground where we appear to be standing. It serves the same purpose as human knees. Really, it's more equivalent to those joints than it is feet, thighs, or shins, but in that sense, our pelvis is just about the same as a human's.

Sighing, I gave Darling a quick peck on his cheek and slithered next to the canopy, rolling myself up so I could sunbathe while Kayo hung up the rest of our laundry, pouting at him even though the way his muscles glistened in the hot summer sun was making my heart pound. I didn't need the sun to raise my body temperature.

"You're hyperventilating," Rachnera teased with a grin.

"Am not," I muttered to her.

"Oh, please," she waved me off, "The only reason I don't think you'll swallow him whole the second he turns his back is because I can hear you both screaming from the floor below me every morning… and every night… and sometimes right in the middle of the day after lunch- hrk!"

My disappointed pout shortened into an irritated scowl with her annoyance, so I shut her up by wrapping my tail around her neck.

"You were saying something?" I snipped at her, grinning mischievously.

Even with her natural strength being much stronger than mine, I had my tail wrapped around her neck so tightly that she wasn't able to speak or even move. Digging her claws into my scales, she was starting to pull me off, but I wouldn't let up. Two pairs of her eyes were digging into my own in a silent challenge, so of course, I wasn't going to let her get away with challenging the Queen of the household and made her suffer for it. Sadly, I was losing strength. All I needed to do was keep her wrapped up long enough until she lost consciousness and I would win this.

"Ka-Kayo!" she croaked after pulling me off enough. I just noticed that the bottom set of her eyes was staring directly where Kayo was supposed to be standing, and it hit me how he hadn't stepped in between us yet. I turned to where Rachnera was pointing, and nearly had a heart attack.

"Darling!" I shouted for him. He was being lifted in the air by some other monster girl! Her head was turned to me, but the sun was behind her at just the right angle so it blinded me, and I ended up tripping over the clothes lines, making me unable to grab Grey before the monster girl swooped him off.

"Honey!" Rachnera shouted. Sluggishly, she scuttled over to the edge of the roof but was even slower than I was to catch them, and I was currently caught up in a net! Since Rachnera wasn't a flyer, she turned around and aimed her rear at the bird girl, focusing very carefully, but the minute she fired off a web, the strip fell over the edge without having gained any momentum. Cursing, Rachnera dropped to her knees and held her forehead.

"Rachnee?! What's going on?!" I shouted at her. If this girl was bold enough to kidnap Darling right in front of us, then I knew she must be incredibly dangerous, so if Rachnera was too dazed to fight, and with Centorea grocery shopping, I would be alone.

"The sun has me worse than I thought," she grumbled, then struggled to stand up and claw the sheets holding me open enough for me to escape them, "I'm going to do something to recover my strength. Go grab that girl, save Honey, and make her pay. I'll join you as soon as I can, and if you run into Centorea-"

"I'll let her know," I assured the spider, "Go rest up. I can handle this."

I most certainly could not handle this! Lamias were by no means weak monsters, having gained popularity in human cultures in large part due to our power, but with an Arachne on the same terrace, I knew this girl was a real force to be reckoned. I was worried I was fighting a chimera, or even a dragon. I didn't want to be alone for this!

Swallowing my fear, I ignored any reservations I had and focused on my goal- rescuing my one true love from the clutches of an evil monster. Jumping over the edge of the roof, I carefully but quickly slid my way down the wall of the house, thankful that lamias were instinctive climbers, then sprinted my way to the park where the girl was heading. From this distance, I couldn't make out what monster she was, but I could still see her basic silhouette enough to tail her. It was Miia to the rescue!

I lost them almost immediately. I had no way of knowing how the kidnapper was able to manage it, but staring at the sun for even a few seconds hurt my reptilian eyes and I had to look away. I couldn't tell if this was intentional, or if it was a happy accident for her, but I couldn't find her.

"You!" I called to a stranger in a baggy suit and bold glasses, and bounced over to him, grabbing his lapel, "Have you seen a human being carried by a flying monster anywhere?!"

The man panickedly shook his head and begged for me not to eat him, so before I let him down, I gave him a disgusted look and called him a racist. After that, I repeated the process. I found myself waltzing down the street until I made it to the metro on the opposite side of Kayo's suburb from where the park was. This was the way the girl was dragging him last, right? Was it possible I could have gotten that sidetracked from him? I didn't really care. I kept pulling people aside and pressing them for answers, but this was clearly a bad idea.

I could hear the cops calling for me, chasing me down. Fortunately, it wasn't Monster's New Law, or MON Squad as they were commonly known, just being regular cops. I cursed just as Rachnera had. How could I have been so stupid not to realize that a frantic snake girl getting physical with people would look, whether or not she had her host family? My swearing continuing, I bolted out of the building. If it had been Agent Smith, I wouldn't have even hesitated to bring her into this, but the civilian police- I think that was a term -was a much different issue, so I had no choice but to run. That probably made it worse.

It was only seconds later until I heard sirens off in the distance heading my way. At this point, I knew it was a do or die situation, so while I could have headed home, I knew that they would eventually find me there if they didn't somehow manage to catch up to me, so instead, I made for the park. That had to be where Darling was. Finding my Host Family was the only choice that I really had to not be arrested, and if he was outside, then my tongue would help me find his familiar wave length. It hadn't picked up anything yet, but if I got close enough-

There he was! As soon as I jumped over the fence surrounding the park, having outpaced the police since I could go over terrain they couldn't, I could feel Darling's location on the tip of my tongue. He was by the fountain, ten paces away from an ice cream stand, and eighteen from a hot dog cart. I followed it excitedly. I couldn't tell you how happy I was to find him again, even forgetting for a second that I was charging straight into a fight with his kidnapper. He was in my sight now. I could see him sitting on a park bench with a small girl with blue wings, blue hair, and really revealing clothing. She was young. I could break her easily before Darling even finished laughing at whatever joke… she… told…

Why was Darling laughing? What was going on here?!

"Who are you?" I growled at the pair, my hands tensed up like claws and just a shred of froth draining from the corner of my mouth, "Who are you and what are you doing with my husband?! Stay away from him!" I could feel the park around me quaking underneath my fury, or maybe I was just angry enough that I hallucinated as much.

"What are you talking about?!" the girl shouted back, having a surprisingly young voice, "I didn't take anyone's husband!"

"Papi…" Darling said with an exaggerated look at the girl, "You pulled me off of my roof."

"Huh?" the harpy turned to him with the most confused expression on her face, the gears turning behind her youthful eyes, "I did? I don't remember that… Wait, who are you again?"

"She doesn't have a head injury. Apparently, she's always like this," came a familiar voice that snuck up on me, having changed from her sundress into the same black and gold crop top she normally wore. I jumped in fright, yelping with my arms shooting up around me.

"Rachnee! Don't do that!" I shouted her down. She smiled at me from the side.

"Pay attention next time," she said, then her face soured when she looked back at the harpy wrapping her wings around Kayo's arm and laughing happily at nothing while he looked at us nervously, silently pleading for help, "You ever hear that folktale in Japan where a bird's brain resets after every three steps?"

"So…" I started, starting to come down from my rage, "She's just…"

"A bird brain, yes," Rachnera finished, her arms crossed over her chest, "Where were you anyway? We've been here for at least an hour."

An hour?! I shrunk under her gaze and looked away, pouting while my fingers linked behind my back.

"I was… looking for you guys…" I muttered. Rachnera laughed her austentatious cackle.

"You got that lost?!" she bleated.

"It's not my fault! I couldn't see what happened to her after she left the house!" I tried to defend, but then suddenly, Papi jumped onto Rachnera's back as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Rachnee-san?" Papi asked in just a slightly sing-songy voice, "Will you play a game with me?" The spider girl gave me a bemused look right as she tossed her hip to one side, making her backside shake hard enough to knock Papi off.

"Nee-san! You're so mean!" Papi whined. She called Rachnera big sister?

"That's the game," Rachnera said with a deadly grin, "See if you can catch me, then see how long you can stay latched on." Papi floundered at that challenge, then met Rachnera's look with a playfully serious one of her own.

"You're on!" she declared.

With that game underway, both of them rushed off in between the trees in the park, Papi trying to catch the spider who could change direction and even altitude on a dime. If I didn't know Rachnera, it would have looked like she was having fun. She was even smiling.

"What… What?!" Miia shouted, running her hands through her hair and then ripping them to her sides, "What just happened?!"

"You've been gone awhile, Miia," Darling said to me with a tired smile, patting the seat next to him, "Let's talk."

Glancing back over to Rachnera and Papi, I pouted one more time at the harpy grabbing one of the spider's legs only to get thrown off a second later, then joined Darling on his seat. Silently, he leaned into me. He was breathing heavily and his forehead was hot, just like when he has to break up a fight between any of us living with him. It was adrenaline. Whatever had happened before Rachnera and I had caught up with him must have been pretty rough on him. Gently, I wrapped my arms over his shoulders and kissed the back of his head, my tail looping its way around his waist without tightening against him.

"Alright, you said you wanted to talk, Darling," I said, waking him up from dozing off, "So, let's talk."

"I'm exhausted," he said without hesitation. I raised my eyebrow at him.

"Darling," I uttered, nuzzling his head half-heartedly, "I'm sorry…" He laughed at me, reaching up and stroking my cheek.

"Miia, can I be honest with you?" he asked, "I mean, I know I can, obviously, but I felt like asking the question anyway.

"Of course you can, Darling!" I proclaimed, pulling him apart from me so I could look him in the eye, "You can trust me with anything! You should know that! There is nothing, nothing at all that you could ever tell me that would ever change my opinion of you, or ruin my feelings for you or- or… Darling, I love you!"

I couldn't figure out how to express to him just how I felt about him. I wanted to tell him that I would do anything for him, that I would always be by his side and that the world could be falling apart around us, the demon armies from Hell invading the human and mamono world, and that I would never leave him. I was totally devoted to him. Couldn't he see that? I had to bite my tongue from saying all of this stuff to him since I knew I made him uncomfortable when I got too mushy with him, but if he couldn't tell how much I loved him, did I really have any other choice? I opened my mouth to tell him this. I had to continue my rant over my love for him, but he beat me to it with a kiss.

"I…" he said after breaking away, gulping, his face flushed, "Miia, I know I've never said this, but I love you too."

Did he just…? My face grew red and hot with my heart pounding hard against my chest, my loins tingling down below out of emotion instead of lust. My vision blurred as tears began dripping down my face, and I hate to say it, but I began blubbering asI tried to make some kind of coherent statement, only to fail miserably. His confession was so surprising, so powerful, that I defaulted back to my native lamia-tongue. My guttural hisses dying down to more humanoid sobs, I began flailing my loose wrists as if I could clear my head with the erratic motion, and decided that all I could really do was bury my head into his chest.

Quietly, my sobs died down to a gentle weeping. My hands clawed at his chest to clench around his shirt, and I knew I was hurting him, but I couldn't help it. I was just so happy. All I wanted to do was wrap my entire snake body around him and ravage him, but even my more sexual nature was overcome with intimacy that prevented any advance before I could begin it. When my weeping stopped, my shaking shoulders finally stilled, I glanced to the side to see Rachnera in the courtyard, kneeling next to a fatigued Papi who was lying on the ground panting heavily, and I realized something.

"Darling?" I mused.

"Yes, My Love?" he whispered into my pointed ear, making my heart skip a beat again.

"What does this have to do with Papi?" I asked. A shiver went up my spine when his fingers trailed up the contours of my lower back.

"When she kidnapped me, I realized that the girl is just a child and is really just looking for someone to keep her company, play with her- a parent, if you want to look at it that way," he explained to me, and I couldn't help but wonder where he was going with this, "After Rachnee came to rescue me and immediately fell in love with Papi, I had enough time to think about our situation in the hour it took you to come find us. I remembered how quickly it took us to get together, and even when two other girls joined us in a polyamorous relationship, how you've always stayed by my side, and how much you, Cerea, and Rachnera have changed me over the past few months. I'm just… I'm happier with all of you, you know? And Papi made me question where my own life is heading. She… Maybe not in the near future, but sometime when I get older, I think I might want to be a father someday… Miia, you're crying again."

"I can't help it!" I whined, "When you say stuff like that, I get so happy that it makes me upset and it's your fault!"

Perhaps I slapped him too hard because he went flying into the tree next to where Rachnera and Papi were resting. It took him a few minutes, and he twitched a few times before doing so, but after groaning t the top of his lungs a few times and getting a sarcastic tongue lashing from Rachnera, he jumped back up. I only wailed louder and hugged him again.

"So, this is where you three are," came a woman's valorous voice off in the distance, "And please tell me that the police sirens heading this way have nothing to do with you."

We all turned to where the voice was coming from and frowned disappointedly when we saw Cerea coming into our section of the park, her sword wrapped around her waist but dozens of grocery bags weighing down her arms. Clopping up to us, she gave us that perpetually judgemental stare of hers. Fortunately, I had a witty retort in store.

"You!" Came another voice, this one male, as he ran over to us with three other men in uniform following him, "We've been following since the train station! Where is your host family?!"

They crowded over to us with their faces contorted in rage, each one of them a police officer that had tracked me down from where I was aggressively scaring people to where I was relaxing with my family. They were looking to arrest me. I was surprised when it wasn't Darling but Rachnera who jumped to my defense first, seconded by Cerea, and then my future husband without any hesitation. All I did was hide behind them.

"I'm her host family," Darling spat at them through gritted teeth, his voice taking on its demonic quality when he's mad, and his eyes looking dead and soulless since he was mentally preparing himself for combat, "What's the issue?"

"Miia?" Papi muttered next to me, tapping my side with her wing, "What's happening? Are these men exterminators? They look angry." I glanced up at the group who were arguing with each other, biting my lip, then looked back down to Papi with a smile.

"It's OK, Sweetie," I said to the harpy comfortingly, running my hand through her hair, "It's just a misunderstanding."

"Look, my guy," Darling said to the one in charge, a bike cop we had seen roaming around the park frequently, "I don't think you know how this works, being a rent-a-cop and all."

"I'm a real police officer!" he said, swatting Darling's hands away from him. All of us glanced at the whistle around his neck and the wooden pistol at his waist, but stayed silent as Darling chose to ignore it.

"Then, as a police officer, I'm sure you're aware of your jurisdiction in the matter of international relations," he explained, pulling out his phone, "Thank, God that Boogle exists… As it says in article five of section nine of the Interspecies Exchange Bill, humans and the members of the extra species can't harm each other, as everyone already knows, but if you read further down into article seven, it goes more into detail about how legal action must be presented. As always, even immigrants have to abide by the law of the land they're in, as well as when the Interspecies Exchange Bill applies. That said, as her host family, what crime did she commit? I can't let you anywhere near her unless I know at least that much."

The police looked at one another. The monstrous look in Darling's eyes never left, even with that murderous smirk on his lips, as the police all looked over at one another. The problem was, I did commit a crime. Once they made Darling aware of it, he wouldn't be able to talk his way out of this. A larger, more intimidating police officer stepped forward, his badge on the hip of his casual slacks, his button down accented by the gun holster at his waist. Confidently, he took off his sunglasses, revealing sharp, hawkish eyes over a broken nose and a patchy goatee.

"This girl ran around assaulting many individuals while demanding information on where another person was," this more chiefly man explained while reading a notepad, "Not only that, but she was traveling without her host family."

There it was. Darling was now made aware of my crimes, and I wouldn't be able to deny them. I was going to get deported. I began to slither forward so I wouldn't cause them any more issues, attempting to turn myself in, but Rachnera stopped me with a claw on my shoulder. She had a cautious look in her eyes. She was sending me a silent message to wait and see what happens. Looking back over to where Darling was arguing with the police, I could see that he didn't even look caught off guard, only nodding casually.

"You see where we are, correct?" he said, gesturing to the ground.

"Uh, yeah! We're in a park!" the officer bellowed, treating Darling like an idiot and making his eye twitch.

"Don't take the bait, Master…" Cerea muttered next to Rachnera, Papi, and myself, rubbing her hands together tightly as sweat beaded on her forehead.

"Yes! Yes, we are!" Darling said, then stood aside, gesturing to me, "So, why haven't you arrested her yet? This is public property, and as you so claim, she assaulted a dozen people. You don't need a warrant to arrest her here."

"And try to get through your harem? We don't have a death wish," he shouted toyingly again, continuing his negative treatment of Darling. I could see his fist clenching. This man was baiting Darling into making a mistake, but after spending enough time around people like him and Rachnera who were always debating and trying to one-up each other mentally, I was sure Darling realized it.

"Oh, please! Don't give me that kind of paltry excuse," Darling said, crossing his arms, then gesturing vaguely to the armed men behind the officer, "I'm a single college student, these girls are liminals and won't bother trying to fight you, and there's sixteen of you with shotguns! If you wanted to arrest her, you would have done it by now. You know what that tells me? That tells me that there aren't really any charges you can process her on, and you know it."

"Oh, of course, because that makes so much-" the officer attempted, but Darling held his hands up.

"Excuse me! I'm not done!" Darling declared harshly, then continued normally, "There aren't any charges you can push on her. No one was assaulted, and she's with her host family now, and all you're trying to do is try to get something out of this because you're a crooked cop."

Everything went silent for a second. The police behind the chief all looked around their crew nervously, not knowing what to do, but the detective was sure of his course of action. He was trying to push Darling, and Darling was pushing right back. The only difference between the two was that Darling won, and he smiled victoriously as the officer pulled out his handcuffs as if he were going to put them around Darling who wasn't even moving to fight back. What was he thinking?! Arguing with police was never a good idea!

We all turned when we saw a sharp clapping over to one side. Each of the dozens of people in the park turned to look at the person stepping forward, the woman wearing a sharp business suit, a government issued badge hooked on her lapel. Her head was dipped down, and her devilish eyes were looking at the man before her with a righteous fury. She was going to eat this man alive.

Surrounding Agent Smith on either side of her were four other liminals I didn't recognize, each one wearing a yellow kevlar vest over a black jumpsuit, except for an eight foot tall monstrous woman who was wearing a suit of armor. One of them had spiky red hair, one gold and one emerald eye with clumpy mascara around them, and scars all over her face. A second one, a girl who wasn't even five feet tall and had one huge eye in the center of her face underneath a violet bowl cut, stayed in the back carrying a sniper rifle twice as big as she was at the ready. Standing right next to Agent Smith was a girl who was naked. She had copper skin and white hair that magically twisted around the private bits of her body, and her eyes were a pure black. Lastly, standing behind their leader, was a brightly smiling, girlish woman with curly blonde hair as long as my body, a bronze tan, and a single horn protruding from her forehead. Whether it was on their vest, or as a tattoo, each of them had the acronym MON labelled somewhere on their body.

"Isn't this a sight," Agent Smith said lowly, "Some low level, local sheriff with facial hair as lovely as his title trying to coerce his way into a christmas bonus. Picking on kids, Detective? Is that all you're good for?"

"It's about time you decided to step in," Darling said proudly, holding his hand out to her palm up.

"You looked like you were having fun," Smith replied, slapping the gesture.

"You don't understand, Agent!" the detective tried to defend, backing up while the ogre began stepping forward, cracking her knuckles. The zombie waltzed around the group with a hungry twinkle in her eye, leveling her gaze specifically on the captain as her small machine guns remained ready at her sides.

"No, Detective, you don't understand," Smith said tiredly, cleaning her nails, "This is a matter involving liminals. You did your job trying to contain the chaos, or lack thereof, but the Interspecies Exchange Program will take it from here."

"What about this kid?" the detective pushed, jabbing his thumb out at Darling. He looked like if he was going to get any angrier, steam would start coming from his ears.

"He's a host family," Smith explained lightly, "That means he falls under our jurisdiction as well." Then, Smith looked at him one more time. "Or do I need to contact your boss about this? Don't you have something better to do like stopping skateboarders from blading on the sidewalk?" The detective narrowed his eyes at her, then turned away. Rolling his finger a few times in the air, he walked towards the rest of his group while each of them jumped back into their cars and drove off.

"I can see why all the girls love you, Kayo," Smith said to him as my family and I walked over to them, trying not to be too excited to tackle Darling in front of the coordinator, "Challenging the entire police department isn't an easy feat."

"If anyone even touches my family," Darling growled, his demonic voice returning, "I will fucking destroy them. Anyway, something tells me you're not just here because Miia went nuts. Papi won't meet your eyes."

I shrunk when he mentioned my mistake, but looked down at Papi who was hiding behind my serpent half in fear. She was a bird brain, but she clearly knew who Smith was, and it looked like the girl had done something stupid and was most likely in trouble with her. Evidently, if it wasn't one thing, it was another.

"Actually, I was going to stop by and talk to you about her later," Smith uttered while digging through her pockets then handing Darling a card we all recognized, "Papi will be your new homestay! I couldn't find anyone else who would host a repeat runaway, but I knew you would be able to handle it."

We all had questions. We all wanted to jump up in protest, but Darling was the one who made the first move.

"WHY?!"


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"I… I swear, this has to be a new culinary milestone," I said in utter astonishment at the mess before me, my face drained of all life, "How in the world did you manage to set off my next door neighbor's smoke alarm?"

The girls and I were sitting on my porch, save for Rachnera who decided to stay in the attic, watching in bewilderment as several firetrucks and fire marshals closed off my street. They walked around the house next to mine, searching for any damage. A peculiar firefighter, a demihuman with more piscine features that I thought I recognized as an eel mermaid, stepped up to us and gave us a quick interview on what had happened to set off the alarm, and thanks to my quick thinking, I managed to divert the question and give her an honest answer about "seeing smoke" while simultaneously convincing her I didn't know where it came from. After she left, I gave Miia the dirtiest look.

"I don't know what happened! I swear! I was just trying to cook the risotto!" the lamia complained. Cerea clopped up to her, her arms crossed.

"And here I didn't think you could be any more of a clutz," she noted, "Did you put oil in the pan?"

"First of all, Horse-Face, it's called a skillet!" Miia defended, but Cerea and I raised our eyebrows at her, making her shoulders drop defeatedly, "No. No I didn't."

"That answers that question, but how did you manage to set off a smoke alarm a hundred feet away?" I asked, making sure none of the government officials were nearby to overhear this conversation.

"I opened up a window and put a fan next to it so the smoke would filter out!" Miia said proudly, her pointed, scaly ears fluttering happily.

"I was hoping there was actually a fire," Papi complained, sitting on the ground next to us, struggling to eat a plate of chicken nuggets I managed to whip up in the microwave, "Hot air like that is the best feeling under my wings, and makes gliding so easy!"

"Papi, you shouldn't wish that somebody's house gets set on fire!" Cerea admonished the girl, then began chasing her around the yard to apologize for being so rude when the girl started crying. Miia hustled around, trying to calm them down, yelling her head off. Normally, this would be the point where I would have stepped in and calmed everyone down long enough to focus on the task at hand, but I gotten distracted by something.

I thought I saw movement in the corner of my eye. It was small and subtle, but it was clear enough that I ended up giving myself no choice but to follow my hunch. Discreetly stealing away, I knelt down by my basement window and fondled the grass.

"That's… odd," I noticed.

"Something amiss, Honey?" I thought I had become accustomed to Rachnera sneaking up on me, but every time I hear her voice, I swear I jump a few feet in the air. At least I stopped screaming when she does that.

"Would you please stop doing that, Rachnee?!" I yelped, looking directly upwards to see her hanging upside down above me, one of my hoodies wrapped around her and drooping loosely at her abdomen. Smirking, she gave me a quick pep on my lips then dropped silently next to me.

"Never," she said affectionately, "Especially not when something tripped one of my traps." I blinked at her in slight fear.

"You have traps in my house?" I asked trepidly.

"More like tripwires," she said, waving her claws dismissively, "Point is, something tripped it, and I'd like to find out what it was. What did you find?"

I wanted to argue, or at least dif her for a bit more information on what her traps were and where I could possibly find them, but I figured that probably wasn't the best idea. I decided to ignore it for now.

"The ground is wet here," I said running my hands over the grass a bit more, "The problem is that I didn't see the fire fighters start up their hoses, and I don't think they have a pipe that burst."

"Oh, sorry, that's probably me," said a voice from behind us. Rachnera and I both jumped when we heard this voice, the arachne instinctively pulling me onto her back to protect me, but when we turned, we saw it was only the eel from earlier with a defeated looking Cerea, Papi, and Miia standing behind her. She probably yelled at them.

Taking off her glasses, the eel eyed us suspiciously. She was wearing a business suit much like Agent Smith wore everyday, but it had the same material as a raincoat to accommodate with her slimier skin. Her oily, frizzy black hair was tied back into a slowly untangling bun, and her teeth were that of a sharks with several rows of serrated enamel. If I hadn't lived with a lamia and an arachne for several months, I might have been intimidated by her, but as things currently stood, she was by far one of the least scary liminals I had seen in a while.

"So, you passed by here a second ago?" I asked, rubbing Rachnera's shoulders lightly to ease her combative tension.

"Yes," she explained, "I work with emergency services on behalf of the ICEP, and I walked through here a few times to make sure that there wasn't a fire, or what kind of damage this would do to this family's insurance. Frankly, I'm just glad they weren't home."

"That doesn't explain why one of my tripwires was broken," Rachnera interjected, ignoring the last part of the agent's explanation.

"I don't really know what to tell you about that," the eel said casually, shrugging and unafraid of the woman before her, "Chances are, I might have knocked something over, or a rat might have escaped from the house next to yours and broke into your basement." The woman's face suddenly grew a bit darker. "I won't lie. When I walked by here the first time, I thought I felt something run over my tail."

"So, now I have to set traps?" I groaned.

"It would be worth a try. I wish you all the best of luck." The eel waved over her shoulder, slithering away like a lamia despite her oceanic origins, and returned to her governmental duties. With a sigh, I led everyone back inside.

(...)

Life pretty much returned to normal for the next couple of days after the results of Miia's cooking livened up the neighborhood. To be fair, "normal" in terms of a monster girl homestay tended to have a varying definition by the day, but whatever you considered average for my family, that's what we had been comforted by in the days following the call to emergency services.

On one such day, Cerea and I had returned home after our morning run and had just stepped into the door, drenched in sweat.

"Have fun you two?" Rachnera teased, not bothering to look up from the TV Drama that she had become addicted to.

"Yes, we did!" Cerea said before I could answer, "He's really learning to use his hips well. He's gotten much better since we first started." I knew that she was talking about my swordplay, but she wasn't able to pick up on the innuendo that Rachnera was attempting to imply, the spider turning to her sister with a befuddled smirk. She just made it too easy.

"Using his hips, eh?" Rachnera repeated. Cerea nodded and continued.

"Of course! Swordplay requires a lot of hipwork, especially when sparring with a female opponent who is more flexible than a male opponent!" Cerea spoke so proudly of me that I didn't want to ruin her mood, but Rachnera couldn't stop laughing, so I had no choice.

"Cerea, please," I cut in, "Just… stop talking. She's making fun of you."

"What did I say?" she asked disappointedly.

"More like what didn't you say!" Rachnera cackled, "Everything you said! Just… everything!"

Chopping the spider girl on her head, I growled at her, effectively silencing her, and then asked Cerea to grab us both some gatorade from the basement. While she trotted down the stairs, I started up the stove. Not that I didn't have a quick breakfast before we left, but sparring with one of the greatest warriors I had ever known built up a serious appetite. Also, judging from Papi lying face down on the floor, I assumed no one else had eaten yet.

"You OK, there, ya daft chicken wing?" I asked the girl.

"So… hungry… Chicken sounds good…" she grumbled, "Where did Cerea go?"

"To the basement," I answered. Papi shot straight up when she heard that.

"But she can't! There are monsters down there!" the girl whined. She wasn't serious, was she?

"Your inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy aside, you don't get to say that," I said flatly, "Before the Exchange Bill that passed a few years ago, monsters didn't exist to humans, and now, I share a house with five different girls, each a different monster species."

"But these monsters are dangerous!" Papi pleaded, pulling on my arm and making me drop an egg, "They're all mean and slimy and have a hundred tentacles." I looked at her with just a bit of frustration at making me drop some perfectly good food, but then I got a sick idea.

"Probably," I said with a malicious grin. Papi screamed and flew over to Rachnera, tackling the poor spider girl.

"Rachnee! Make him stop!"

"Honeeey!" Rachnera whined, puffing a bit of air to get a strand of hair out of her face from when Papi hit her. The whine wasn't about how I was treating my baby sister, though, but instead that I had disturbed her "me time."

"Master? Did you drink all of the gatorade?" I heard Cerea's voice come from the basement door.

"Hm? No, why?" I asked, just starting the whip the eggs, cheese, and meat all together.

"Because there isn't any down there. Just a few empty bottles." The centaur gave me a curious look as she used a towel to dry the sweat off of her breasts, her sports bra not doing much to help keep her boobs supported. Regardless of the unintentionally sexy motion, I couldn't stop the scowl from drawing on my brow.

"That's weird. I must have had a spare hundred down there…"

"Oh, hey! You guys are back!" came a greeting from Miia as she slithered down the stairs, wearing nothing but a pink bathrobe that matched her scales and a white towel tying up her hair, "I just got out of the bath if either of you want to use it."

"Thank you, Miia!" I called over to her, "I just started making breakfast, so I guess Cerea gets the next use out of it."

"Thank you, Master!" my sparring partner said happily, her tail swishing so hard that it knocked a lamp off of the table by the door.

"Don't worry about that," I said with a grin, knowing that the ICEP would cover the damage, "You go have fun, K? I'm going to start washing the potatoes."

Cerea nodded mournfully and began walking up the stairs. As I grabbed a number of red potatoes from the bag I bought just the other day, I heard Miia slither over to try to help me, but I quickly pushed her back. She wasn't coming anywhere near my kitchen again. As it just so happened, however, that might have been a bad idea because unbeknownst to me, my life was in danger. When I turned on the faucet, a prehensile, slimy tentacle appeared from the spout and wrapped itself around my head. In half a second, my whole head was underwater, drowning.

"Mbbiaiiaiaaiaa!" I tried to call for my first girlfriend in the household, only to get a throat full of some of the weirdest tasting water I had ever devoured, the yell coming out bubbly and strangled.

"Darling! Hold on!" I thought I heard her. My ears were drowning just as much as I was, so her voice seemed distant and echoed widely, but trying to decipher what she said wasn't as bad as getting hit over the head with… What was that? A flogging paddle? It terrified me and horrifically turned me on thinking about why should would have had that.

"What is that thing?!" Rachnera shouted, scuttling up to the ceiling.

"It's the monster!" Papi cried, fluttering her wings like a panicked rooster.

"What is going on down here?!" Cerea galloped down the stairs, then screamed and ran back up when she realized she was topless.

We realized what this thing was at this point. This viscous ball of ooze crawled along the walls and settled behind the TV, drenching the plaster in a sticky glue. Papi jumped away from her and onto Rachnera's belly. As the weight hit the girl's chitin stomach, she grunted in pain and dropped from the ceiling onto the ground, cracking the wood and effectively knocking out the most dangerous girl that lived in our household. Papi didn't even care. She just used the larger liminal's body as a meat shield while peeking over at the ooze that was peeking over the table itself.

"Is that a slime?!" Miia shrieked into my ear behind me, her tail coiling around me and clamping my legs together.

"I think it's a girl…" I muttered.

Primordial, gender irrelevant slime or no, this malleable ooze definitely had something akin to humanoid features. Rather cute features, actually.

I demanded my "mini Kayo" to stay down as I gave this girl another once over. I couldn't see much as she knelt behind the TV and the stand it rested on, but the way she curiously placed her chin in her hands, tilting her head in confusion as she watched us, I could manage to get a good idea as to what her general form would be. Judging by the length of her arms and overall size of her head, she seemed to be roughly six feet tall. The green slime fall behind her and down her shoulders, a few shades of yellow burning it, acted as hair and was long enough to disappear beneath the screen, so I assumed it was about chest level. As for the general shape of her face, neck, and arms, she was clearly in good shape. Her eyes, on the other hand, were nothing more than two orbs of bright blue light. They were captivating, but mostly creepy.

The most peculiar part was that, despite our blind panic with her appearance, particularly after trying to drown me in her body, she didn't seem at all uncomfortable or threatened by us. All she did was watch us.

"I guess this explains where all my gatorade went," I whispered to Miia.

"What are we going to do?" she replied, "Slimes are really dangerous creatures, and actually fit the name 'monster' better than any of us."

"Do you think she'd attack?" I asked, suddenly worried, and pinching Miia in the right spot on her tail I knew she'd release me with.

"It's a possibility…" she muttered. Suddenly, I had a bad thought, and I had to verbalize it.

"Miia… what makes slimes so dangerous?"

The slime tilted her head a bit further and folded the ooze above her lights to simulate blinking. Papi yelped at the sudden movement. As she ducked behind Rachnera's unmoving form a bit further, the slime's eyes leveled on Miia and myself, and with a high pitched voice that most humanoids weren't capable of reaching, she spoke.

"Dangerous?" she ululated with some effort. Her english wasn't that great. Rather, it seemed that verbal speech wasn't that easy for her judging by the way her face contorted in relative discomfort.

"Kill it!" Miia shouted and sprung over the half wall towards the slime before I could even attempt to stop her.

All hell seemed to break loose at that point. Papi, due to her experience with the "monster," jumped away from Rachnera whose legs had begun to twitch with their chitin scraping together loudly, the harpy squawking. She flapped her wings as hard as possible, trying to appear intimidating. Miia roared with the most guttural, animalistic noise I had ever heard from her, and slapped her tail so hard towards the TV stand that the whole thing crashed through the wall. The slime had already moved away, and was running up the stairs. It reminded me of something. These girls were not human, and they never were. No matter how many features or personality traits they shared with me and those of my species, they were monsters first and foremost, and were more dangerous than any of my kind could hope to be.

This is what Host Families are supposed to prevent, right? It was my job to step in between them and protect the girls staying with me. I loved them. Of course, I didn't want anything bad to happen to them, so why couldn't I move? Why were my feet planted to the ground and my legs shaking?

"Good job, Cerea!" Miia cheered, her tail flailing through the air happily.

"No problem," the centaur said, wiping her brow tiredly while carrying a clear trash bag filled with water that I realized was the slime when I saw her lights, "How did a slime get in here?"

"Good… um… good job… Cerea…" I stammered, struggling to bring myself to walk over to her and pull down the sports bra she had hastily put on that had popped over her boobs, "I'll take… I'll take it from here."

"Darling?" Miia asked worriedly, but I know I scared her when she put her hand on my shoulder and I jumped away from her with a wild look in my eyes. It had just now sunk in that this was the first time I had ever seen them be truly protective over me, or attempt to fight to protect me, every other event before now being nothing more than anger.

I took a second and closed my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I did something I hadn't done in years and "cleared the mechanism," emptying my mind of anything other than instinct, my training, and the task at hand.

"So," I said in my darker mindset, taking the bag from Cerea, "What are we going to do with you? What even are you?" I thought I heard it whine when it saw my cold stare, so I set it down in the corner and pulled the girl's over, checking on Rachnera as she began to wake up. "We can't keep her in that thing forever. People drink soda and lemonade out of bags all the time because those things leak pretty easily, so we need to make a decision yesterday. Cerea, since I don't trust Miia with this question, tell me what I need to know about slimes."

"Darling…" Miia whimpered with no small amount of pain in my voice, and seeing me refuse to meet her eyes with my arms crossed and my jaw set in a deep line probably didn't help. Her eyes began to tear up.

"Miia, I love you, but as far as I'm concerned, we're all still in danger and I need to make sure nothing happens, so excuse me, but I'm asking Cerea about this," I said quickly, then nodded to my sensei. She shook her head to focus then answered.

"Slimes don't communicate with other species, and are solitary creatures," she explained, "They absorb the nutrients from everything they touch, and have been known to attack anyone that gets near them."

I was thinking I was getting a pretty decent picture of events. Digging through the fridge, I pulled out a few bottles of water and tossed them to everyone, making sure they were all hydrated while only taking a sip of my own, glancing between each of my friends while keeping an eye on the slime.

"She surprised me," Rachnera grumbled, "And I reacted poorly. I'm sorry." She gasped when I lightly trailed my fingers down her cheek and onto her chin.

"It's alright," I said, my face still demure as ever, "Everything is fine, now. Do you have anything you can tell me about this situation, though? If anyone can pick up on something the rest of us can't, it'd be you." I ended that line with a smirk, and Rachnera's six eyes looked up at me widely. Looking at her as an outside observer at the moment, I could tell that however I was coming off to her at the moment was something she found devilishly sexy.

"She um… Slimes aren't kind monsters, but they're not dangerous," Rachnera explained as her breathing quickened.

"Are you nuts?" Miia asked, "Papi said this one attacked her!"

"Did she?" I asked Papi with a raised eyebrow, my tone making the question seem almost rhetorical.

"Well… No," Papi said, "When I went down to the basement to look for toys to play with, I just saw her eyes, and then this small girl said hi to me from behind the meat freezer. She didn't do anything else. I'm sorry, Big Bro, I didn't mean to scare everyone."

"Master?" Cerea asked. I think she was the first one who caught my look of realization, but I paid her no mind as I picked Papi up in a tight hug.

"It's perfectly OK, Baby Sis," I soothed her, "I think I've figured this thing out because of you."

Everyone watched me silently as I grabbed a boot knife from under the kitchen table, ignoring my neighbors from across the street who were watching me from the hole in the wall Miia had created. With one look from me, they all turned their heads, pretending to do something else. Subtly, I gave Centorea a look, and she hesitated, but since she had come to trust that I knew what I was doing and that Rachnera could easily protect me if something happened, my sensei trotted out of the house and directed the onlookers away.

It was so simple. I regretted not picking up on it earlier, but the signs were so obvious that finding the truth as easy as I did was inevitable. The eel from the ICEP was covered in mucus, and had told my household that she felt something was off about the alley between mine and my neighbor's house, while a few days later, my stores of gatorade had been completely emptied. After that, the slime came out of the sink, and attacked me when I was covered in sweat. Not only that, but assuming Papi's assessment about the slime's size being that of a small child before, and now as a beautiful woman, the conclusion was right in front of my face. This slime, and possibly all slimes, weren't dangerous. At least, not as long as they stayed hydrated.

With one swift movement, I sliced the flat of the blade across the plastic trash bag while making sure the point didn't pierce it. The girls jumped in shock. Rachnera shot her webs at me, latching onto my back, and yanked me towards her as the slime girl took a few moments to regain its previous shape. I was right about her being a beautiful woman. The only way someone could have that thin of a waist, legs that long, and boobs that big was if they were a shapeshifter or a Skyrim Mod.

"Honey, please explain to me why you did that?" Rachnera said, holding me tightly against her, and for a second, I thought I felt her shaking.

"Darling!" Miia groaned, but this time, her tone didn't have a single ounce of defection, but was filled entirely with anger at my decision. I knew she was pissed at me, but despite her furious ire, she didn't hesitate to block me from the sight of slime, acting as a meat shield in order to protect me. The slime, on the other hand, tilted its head again curiously, still unsure of what was going on.

"Would you guys just calm down and trust me already?!" I shouted. Everyone surrounding me jumped in surprise, the angry tone my voice took being a serious rarity for me, and Cerea even cantered back into the building to check on me. I shrugged Rachnera off and stood up. Walking over to the slime, she didn't even flinch when I reached her and knelt down to chat with her face to face. I smiled at her. She smiled back.

"You're not really dangerous are you?" I asked.

"Dangerous?" she repeated again, then looked over my shoulder at the girls behind me for a second, followed briefly by her wrapping her arms around me, fists tightening around my tee shirt, and looking at the girls hesitantly, "Dangerous." Gently, I patted her head.

"Don't worry, they're not going to hurt you," I said lightly, ignoring the stickiness on my fingers, "You surprised them is all, and then they just reacted poorly." I glanced over my shoulder at them. "VERY poorly."

"Hurt you?" the slime asked me, splitting away from me without letting go and looking up at me with a concerned look. It took me a second to understand what she meant.

"Oh! No, I'm fine," I said, shaking my head with a grin, "No one here is going to hurt me."

"Hurt me?" the slime asked again.

"They'll die trying!" The joyful way I said that made even me uncomfortable.

"Aww, you just wanted a friend, didn't you?" Papi suddenly asked, making me jump when I realized she was right next to me.

"Perhaps, I overreacted," Cerea noted, then turned away with a hot blush when I mouthed my thanks to her.

"If she's not going to hurt my Honey, I don't really have a problem with her," Rachnera mentioned, scuttling over and running her hand through my hair which made me purr, "This whole morning was too dramatic for my tastes, but I think perhaps that was on us."

"Miia?" I asked after laughing at everyone becoming so amicable to the slime who was now laughing in glee. When I turned to look at her, though, she had a pointedly ticked off look, but was trying to hide it behind her bangs, her eyes trained on the ground, and her fists clamped at her sides.

"I don't have any issue with HER," she grumbled. The way she said those last few words made me furrow my brow in anticipation. I screwed up.

"Master, I don't think this slime has a home," Cerea mentioned, "She probably came here through some… less than legal means."

"True," I muttered, trying to put Miia's anger aside for now to focus on what was probably a bigger issue, trying to stand up, but the slime sticking to me affectionately since I had apparently rescued her.

"Big Bro? What's going to happen to Suu?" Papi asked, tugging on my shirt.

"Suu?" I repeated.

"That's what I named her! Because Suu and Slime both begin with S!" Papi said that so triumphantly, that I couldn't deny her.

"You're the salt of the Earth, Baby Sis," I deadpanned, "But the name works."

"That doesn't solve the issue at hand, though," Rachnera claimed.

She was right. If Suu was an illegal immigrant like we all thought she was, or at the very least, a criminal despite her lack of intelligence or ill intent, my family would be in danger. Agent Smith would need to be made aware of her presence. I loved each and everyone of these girls, Suu included, and I didn't want to see her get in trouble. However, if things remained as they were, then she would be a danger to myself and the rest of my family, and as combative as I was, I wasn't willing to take on the government if I didn't have to, or have an army backing me up.

Regardless, I looked Suu in the eyes one more time. There was one last question I wanted to ask her before we could decide on a course of action, and I figured it was best for everyone. I just hoped nobody would kill me for it.

"Hey, Suu?" I asked, "As long as everyone else is OK with it, how would you like to stay here until we find a place for you to stay permanently?"

The group was in an uproar at that. Papi cheered happily while Rachnera didn't really care one way or the other how this worked out, true to her nature. Cerea was the first to speak up and express concerns about this, but after describing Suu as a child in need of help, I think I nearly gave the centaur an aneurysm, hearing her sputter something behind a red face and a nosebleed about marrying her master and having kids. I hope I don't need to explain how uncomfortable the idea of having kids with Cerea was- not out of a lack of love for her, but because of the question of how we would successfully reproduce. Not to mention that I wasn't ready to truly be a father.

Glancing back to the witch looking to sacrifice me to the lamia dark lord, I saw a similar sight to Cerea's fantasy in Miia, her hands up to her cheeks and her eyes closed as the thought of having kids made her swoon. She swayed her hips side to side as my explanation to Cerea sunk into her own psyche. Thinking about it myself, I wondered only briefly what our kids would look like, and then quickly pushed the horrifying thought out of my head, choosing instead to give Miia a cheeky grin.

"Don't give me that look!" she snapped, "I'm still mad at you!" I cringed.

"I'm boned, aren't I?" I asked rhetorically.

"For awhile, yes, and not in the good way," she hissed. Smirking again, I decided to push my luck and waltz up to her, bumping her hips with mine as she turned away from me, her arms crossed tightly.

"You looooove me~" I teased. Naturally, Miia's very reasonable and not at all an overreaction was to grab me by the throat with her tail and strangle me for a few minutes, a satisfied twitch to her lips making her smile.

"I do," she admitted, "But don't push it. I'm not quite ready to forgive you for what you said, or for bringing another girl into the household when I'm supposed to be your number one." She let me go when I began tapping her side, gasping for air.

"Pretty sure you're the only one he's had actual sex with, Miia," Rachnera mentioned.

"Not- hurk! -helping, Rachnee!" I coughed.

"Hurt?" Suu asked after sliding over to me. I shot her a pained grin.

"A little," I admitted, "It happens a lot, but I'm OK with it. It's actually pretty fun for me." After that truth that I was sure no one really believed, I stood up and placed my hands on my hips, prepared to give Suu the induction I had given every other member of my household. "Suu the Slime! As of this moment, you are a now a member of our family, and I would personally like to welcome you to the Ghirahim Household."


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Miia looked so cute when she was sleeping. Once Suu had settled into the household, she and I made up rather nicely, and once our "making up" had concluded, she was too exhausted to keep the rest of her body wrapped around me for the rest of the night, giving me plenty of time to snake my way out of bed (get it? It's a pun!), shower the stank off, and return to the room. Sitting back down on the bed, I couldn't keep the smile away from my face. Her lower half was dreamily rolling around itself as her features maintained a peaceful expression despite the warmth of my body being removed from her. Up above, the lower half of her face was covered by her pillow that she had pulled into vice grip against her chest, nibbling lightly against the cotton. Her hair was falling into her face.

My smile growing slightly, I reached down and softly brushed a few strands aside. Her face contorted in discomfort for one second at being woken up, then her eyes fluttered open groggily, leveling on me through the veil of subconscious. A fanged grin broke out on her face as she sat up and yawned, stretching widely, her exposed breasts flopping with the motion. I wasn't sure if she was aware her entire naked body was bare to the world or if she just didn't care, and knowing her devil-may-care attitude and what we had done last night, I was pretty sure it was the latter.

"Good morning!" she squeaked, pecking my lips quickly.

"Morning, My Love," I greeted, linking my fingers with hers while pulling a sheet over my exposed waist, "How did you sleep?"

"Like a baby," she said, tightening her hand around mine lovingly, "But my hips are still so sore. You really worked me hard last night, Darling!"

Chuckling, I gently dug one hand into her hair and pulled her to me, resting my forehead on hers. In response, Miia reflexively wrapped her tail around my waist. I remembered that before we made it into the bedroom, and just before we started fooling around, Miia had expressed some… concerns about what we were doing. She was worried that it would hurt, that it was her first, but more importantly, her biggest worry was that I'd see her differently in the morning.

She was an idiot.

"And I don't regret a thing," I whispered to her. Miia squealed and tackled me onto the bed again, her lips pressing against my own as the tip of her tail worked its way around my hips.

"I can't tell," she said seductively, "You seem like you're not sure whether you liked it or not. Do I have to give you another taste?" Her long, prehensile tongue began working its way across my chest.

"Well…" I stated open-endedly, nodding to one side with a smirk with a lascivious implication.

We jumped when a knock came at the door, ripping apart from one another and trying to cover ourselves despite no one actually entering.

"Master? Miia?" came Cerea's voice, "If you two are quite done, breakfast is ready."

Miia's and my shoulders sunk depressively at hearing Cerea's announcement. As a matter of fact, we weren't done. Picking up the sheet off of my bed, Miia held it up to her body and began slithering out of the room, but before she reached the door, she turned to me with a smile.

"Last night was…" she stammered, trying to find the right words.

"I know," I finished, returning her warmth, "I feel the same way." Her grin returned, her ears fluttering cheerfully for a bit before returning her gaze to me.

"We will need to talk about this situation with the others, though," she said. I frowned. I wasn't sure if she was talking about revealing our relationship status to them, or if she meant my interest in Rachnera and Centorea, but either way, the prospect filled me with dread. It wasn't like I didn't know this conversation would eventually happen, but that didn't mean I was looking forward to it. It took me several minutes to get dressed since that dread had weighed me down so much. I was also looking forward to maybe getting an extra hour's worth of sleep, cuddling, and pillow talk with Miia, but it looked like I wouldn't be so lucky. Immediately after stepping into the dining area, I was quickly distracted by Papi jumping onto my back.

"Master? I'm hungry," she whimpered. I groaned inwardly and hugged Miia tightly for a quick second before setting Papi into a high chair and taking my own seat. Rachnera was using her webs to sling plates and other utensils onto the table while Centorea trotted around, placing our usual breakfasts of eggs and bacon, or steamed vegetables as the case may be, both of whom were giving an odd look to me and Miia. Cerea was clearly upset, tears threatening to spill from her eyes even though she tried her best to hide them. This was in stark contrast to Rachnera who was shooting me and Miia a partciularly evil look in all six of her crimson eyes, her fangs turned up in a wicked grin as she stroked her chin.

"Don't you have a particular glow about you," the spider girl teased, scuttling to her place next to Suu once the table had been set and placing a tube and funnel up to the top of her bucket to slide the food into, "I don't think I can call you 'Mr. Virgin' anymore, can I?"

"Rachnee, please don't go there right now," I pleaded.

"Oh? And why should I not? Was the sex not any good? It sure didn't sound like it from the room above yours." Rachnera put on an erotic face as she manipulated her voice to sound deeper and more like mine, "Oh, Miia! Right there! Your tail feels so good!" She shut up when I threw my napkin at her.

"Master? What is she talking about?" Papi asked while picking up the controller to my Wii U so she could play her favorite tennis game, focusing more on setting up the system for when she was done eating than to me, "Oh! Hey, Mom!"

I turned to see Miia sauntering into the living room shortly after me, her hair still a mess but looking brushed, if a bit half hazardly. Miia grinned and pulled the harpy into a hug which was readily returned. It warmed my heart to see that shortly after declaring Rachnera her big sister, Papi immediately recognized Miia as her surrogate mother, particularly given the conversation I had been having with the lamia shortly before Papi had moved in.

"Good morning, Dear! Did you sleep well?" Miia asked.

"Yes! Come check out this game Master showed me!" Papi demanded, pulling Miia along but the lamia held fast.

"A bit later, Papi," she said, batting the girl on the head lightly, "Right now, Darling and I need to talk to everyone about something rather important."

Miia was so set on having this conversation as soon as possible, whether or not I was ready for it, and that made the heat rising up to my face even more unbearable. It felt like a lump in my throat was trying its best to strangle me. To be perfectly honest, though, it wasn't the drama or the potential the other girls attacking me that had me so worried as much as it was breaking their hearts. Still, this conversation needed to happen. I just needed to pull myself up by my boot straps, suck in my gut, stick my chest out, and face the music like the warrior I pretended to be. When everyone was seated, Miia at my left, I stood up, my eyes closed in determination.

"As you all know," I started, not having planned anything to say and winging it, "Miia was the first homestay to move in with me. Rather quickly, we ended up spending almost every night together, but then things took a harsh turn and Rachnera moved in, changing the flow of the household."

Rachnera leaned forward, her head on her wrist while a playful smirk played at her lips, listening intently.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in her from the start," I whimpered, my voice cracking, "After awhile, she and I started behaving as a couple, same as myself and Miia. You could probably imagine my surprise when Miia and Rachnera talked it over with me, and we decided to stay in a kind of… open relationship. You both wanted to compete for me."

I shot them a wry smile. Miia gave me back a cocky smile as she ran her hand through her hair, knowing she had won that duel, while Rachnera took a sip of her morning tea. The arachne was unwilling to make eye contact with me.

"Then, due to some… less than fun circumstances," I continued, rubbing where my worst wounds were from fighting the thugs that wanted to hurt me and Centorea, "Cerea ended up moving in with us, as well."

The centuar straightened up.

"I won't lie to you," I explained, regret filling my voice, "After my sheer luck with Miia and Rachnera, and after the drama that came after that, I ended up finding comfort in Cerea's maternal personality."

"You mean her tits," Rachnera pointed out, only to get a slap from the woman in question.

"Well… that, too," I admitted, "But after sharing one night with her, and then talking it over with Miia and Rachnera, the four of us decided to make our poly threesome a foursome, but there was something else in there that fueled that decision. Smith spoke with us about me marrying one of you."

Everyone looked on in stilled shock, the air became heavy and tense. I gulped back my nerves and gave myself no choice but to continue this confession, knowing that when this conversation had concluded, it would not end well. Who would want to move out? How would my relationships with them change? More importantly, after I break up with them, would they try to kill me?

"Last night, I chose Miia," I declared, and saw both Cerea and Rachnera close their eyes in defeat, Miia frowning slightly, "I never meant to hurt either of you. I wish I could tell you how sorry I am about this, but because I will be marrying Miia, I will have to… to…" I couldn't get the words out. How could I say that I no longer wanted to be with them when I so desperately wanted to have them in my life the same as Miia?

Fortunately, it looked like Miia had something to say, and shot out of her seat.

"Darling, what are you saying?!" she demanded, "You don't have to break up with anyone just because you're with me!"

We all blinked at her in confusion. She had stated multiple times what this competition was to her, and that she would win me in the end. Why was she just now saying otherwise? I think I spoke for everyone when I so eloquently vocalized this as a simple, "what?"

"Miia…" Centorea started calmly, "You've always said you were his number one. If you didn't want him to break up with us after you became his wife, why you call yourself that?"

"Because, I AM his number one," she declared, crossing her arms and giving both of the girls a dark look, daring them to challenge her, "That means he can have a number two and a number three."

"What are you talking about Miia?" Rachnera scoffed tiredly, twirling her glass.

"Do you guys not know anything about lamias?" Miia pondered panickedly, "We're a tribal society that shares a husband! We don't believe in strict monogamy with the only exception being that there is one dominant female. Otherwise, we regularly share our husbands with the entire family. You guys are my family. If I wanted him all to myself, don't you think I would have mentioned something months ago when Rachnera moved in? I wasn't worried about losing my Darling to you at all! I was worried about losing my place as the queen of the Ghirahim household."

We all looked at each other trepidatiously. She couldn't be serious. There was no way this jealous girl, this overtly aggressive lamia could possibly be serious about-

"Cerea, Rachnera," Miia stated seriously, reaching across the table and taking both of their hands, "You know I wouldn't lie to you. I promise you that it really isn't as big a deal as Darling is making it out to be. I'm a lamia, and lamias always share their husbands with their family."

"So… Me and Honey…" Rachnera stammered, her usual in-control composure being shattered.

"Master and I… we can…? Truly?" Cerea sputtered, her tears finally falling. Miia smiled warmly at both of them, slithering around the table and pulling both of them into a tight hug.

"Of course you can, you idiots!" she said, "I wouldn't stop you three from being happy. Like I said, you're family, and I have no problems sharing with you."

Miia looked up at me for confirmation. As confusing as the situation was for me, and for everyone involved- I really couldn't imagine what was going through Centorea's or Rachnera's heads at the moment -the look Miia was giving me was perfectly clear. She was an obnoxiously rambunctious and energetic girl. I had even described her before as the pure embodiment of chaos on more than one occassion, but the look on her face was one that I never expected to see from her. She looked like she was at peace.

I ended up crying myself. Tears rolled down my cheeks, that vice grip on my heart seeming to let go as I stepped around the table and met the three girls I had fallen in love with. Gently caressing their cheeks, I gave all three of them a quick but deeply passionate kiss. After my lips had connected with Rachnera's she blushed and began cackling like a little girl, and Centorea's face grew a bright red, steam billowing from her head as she tried to hold back a squeal. Lastly, Miia giggled and wrapped herself around each of us.

I'd have to say that the past year had been one of the most stressful experiences of my life, all things considered. With the Interspecies Exchange Program having been established, I knew that I would be exposed to monster girls and all things from their cultures left and right, but I never expected Agent Smith to come to my door that fateful day with Miia and tow courtesy of a simple clerical error naming me as her host. I had never even signed up for the program. Then, out of nowhere, I was hosting the most beautiful lamia I had ever seen, occasionally getting into fights thanks to her, breaking my back, popping my arms out of my shoulders, and coming to experience all sorts of injury because of her.

I figured that was bad enough, but the costs were easily offset by the benefit of having a cute snake girlfriend sleeping in my bed every night, wrapping her 21 foot body around mine, keeping me warm. I could only debate if it was still worth it when Rachnera had moved in.

The spider girl came to me as a huge surprise, particularly because I didn't know that monsters so dangerous would be allowed to enter the program, but also because of how beautiful this one in particular was. She was crass, clever, and always kept me on my toes. She always had me thinking about my next move, and gave me a love of witty banter with someone as smart as she was, and let's not even mention that she fulfills two weird fetishes of mine. A spider body and bondage? Sign me the hell up!

Miia was already my perfect match, being so loyal and affectionate, and making me smile everyday. In contrast, Rachnera was cold and calculating, and very sexual. In their own ways, they were both perfect for me.

Centorea had been the one to even things out. I was stressed to the point of breaking between the constant arguments between Miia and Rachnera, finding any excuse I could to get out of the house, and when a centaur, someone who had been trained as a chivalrous knight, offered to teach me swordplay, there was no way I could refuse. It was a good bit of stress relief.

It was also the moment I learned what and whom I would fight for. Centorea and her outlandish sense of honor, as well as her intense maternal instincts had rubbed off on me, and when I was outgunned and outnumbered against several thugs looking to harm us, I didn't even back down. I didn't run. I stood my ground and fought against every single one of them, hoping to give my friend enough time to get away to safety, sacrificing myself in the process. When she moved in, it was probably the happiest I had been since joining the exchange program. Falling in love with someone so caring and kind was inevitable at that point.

Sitting at the head of the table, I wore the most genuine smile I had in a very long time, my heart filled with pride and love as I gazed over my new family. Miia at my left, Cerea and Rachnee at my right, and our two children Suu and Papi at either side. I loved each and everyone of them. It may not have been the most traditional family, being made up of multiple different species, but I guess this was the sole purpose of the Interspecies Exchange Program: to make all sentient species find true happiness.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Agent Smith was a monster- no, not like that. More in the metaphorical sense. She was the perfect case study for any writer, philosopher, or licensed psychologist who wanted to figure out more about human morality for the simple sense that she had none other than good intentions. She was a utilitarian. When it came to her goal of promoting peaceful relations between humans and the extraspecies, she didn't care who she had to step on or hurt, what laws she had to break, or what drama she had to start.

And as much she loved Kayo, he wasn't any exception. She cared more for his household than she cared about him, and if she had to upset him sometimes to achieve the greatest possible outcome for her ambitious goals, then so be it. In her mind, the girls' happiness was first and his was second.

There was no way she could deny that Kayo was a great person, and if the words of her MON Squad and the monthly check-ins with his homestays were anything to go by, an ideal man that most girls would be excited to call their beau. Even though she had never really cared about romance herself, she couldn't deny he was attractive and very considerate of those he cared about. He was too pure for this world. A sexual deviant, to be sure, but it had to have been some kind of divine intervention that led her to his house when she was looking for a place for Miia to stay. Who else could host five girls, and not only stay stable under the pressure, but keep his household peaceful and turn every member within into a closely-knit family? There was no way he was completely human, at least not anymore.

Which could only mean one thing… Regardless, she could handle that issue when it became a real problem. For now, what harm would it cause for another girl to join them?

The only problem…

"What do you mean you lost her?!" Smith hissed into her phone.

… was that her team was wholly incompetent.

She was supposed to meet with the Ghirahim household in the nearby park where Kayo's new charge could swim in the lake should she need to, but at the moment, she was driving around the surrounding city blocks looking for her since she thought it was a great idea to sneak away from her bodyguards. The girl just didn't understand her situation sometimes. With rare exception, it was illegal for any liminal, regardless of status, to be out in public without their host, but that was doubly true for a VIP such as herself. If she was caught pretending the rules didn't apply to her, it could create some serious damage to the peace between humans and monsters.

Sighing, trying her best to calm down, Smith knew that this girl wasn't so selfish. She was very excitable and impulsive, and would often forget the situation at hand so she could give into her whims when the urge overpowered her. She wasn't so bold as to pretend that laws were unimportant. Her mother wouldn't allow that.

Still, it would be best to find her as soon as possible. The longer she was alone, the more likely it would be for a political incident to occur.

(...)

Ever since Miia and I had officially gotten engaged, things had been at a high for me and the others. Sure, there would be a bit of drama here and there, mostly revolving around Rachnera leaving her webs everywhere or Papi being a bird brain, but with all of the romantic tension between the girls being resolved, every argument was about general roommate nonsense. We were happy.

I had to admit that Miia played the biggest role in the household's fresh dynamic. She had always been flirty and slightly overbearing, but now that she felt she no longer had any competition for my affections, mostly due to her species' polygamous qualities, I had noticed a big change in her personality. Now, she was more motherly. She had always wanted to be a good wife and was very open about her desire to have the perfect family, that it was her reason for living if nothing else, but she had turned into a central figure that the family could rally around almost overnight. She began treating Centorea and Rachnera with respect as her sisters, nestling into a comfortable friendship. As for Suu and Papi, even though the pair were the same age as her physically, she treated them as if they were her own children, and did everything she could to make sure they were happy.

Rachnera and Centorea, on the other hand, didn't change much. At best, I could tell you that they were happy, but the fact Miia had more or less consented to sharing me with them didn't seem to affect them much. I tried to put it out of my mind, but I couldn't shake the subtle discomfort that followed us everywhere we went. I knew it was weird, but now that the threat of constant romantic turmoil and in-house mortal combat wasn't perpetually looming over my head, I was more uncomfortable than I had been over the last half a year. It was as if the removal of danger made me feel more anxious than the presence of it.

I didn't see Rachnera much anymore. She had been spending an abnormal amount of time in her room lately, but our witty banter had become more cunning and it kept me on my toes a bit more than usual, as if she was trying to find a hole my defenses. She only ever came out of my room when she needed something though, so I didn't see her often. Whether it was food, coffee, or sex, she came out of the attic only a few times a week, and her absence, as much as it made me miss her, made me think that our new romance had something to do with it. She was very open and seductive, and very secure in her status as my girlfriend, so she had never been to put off with sharing me before, so I had to ask her why she was hiding. Turned out that she just loved the chase too much and now that there was no competition for me, she didn't have much of a reason to associate with the family anymore.

I called her a brat, gave her a peck on the lips, and moved on.

As for Centorea, she was still as uptight as always since her paranoia and excitable personality never had anything to do with everyone trying to get in my pants. She was still her usual jumpy, passionate self. As long as she remained my knight, she would forever fill her role as such, and honestly, I wouldn't want her to be anything else. She wasn't just a knight, nor a woman of honor. She was MY knight. I wouldn't have accepted her into the house if I was going to make her pretend to be something she wasn't. First and foremost, she was the very epitome of chivalry and I loved that about her.

Plus, riding a horse, even if the mount's upper half was a very attractive woman whom I had to resist the urge to fondle her buxom breasts was a great lower back and leg workout. If I ever started fighting professionally, my kicks would be deadly.

Too bad Agent Smith hated me. The coordinator knew that I had spent months trying to get these girls on friendly terms, even if she didn't yet know about my boiling their cabbage just yet, so she just had to ruin it. She was like a parasite that sees joy and glee and thinks "ah yes, time to destroy this beautiful thing." She had helped me out on several occasions, keeping me out of prison on a few occasions when I was trying to protect the girls from terrible humans, but given how frequently she made it a point to bust into our lives and wreak havoc, I was quickly beginning to hate her.

Although, I was pretty sure she only helped me out because she cared about the girls staying with me and nothing else. If I was benefited by Smith trying to look out for their happiness, then that was just my own good luck, otherwise the government Agent couldn't care less about me. Case and point, it looked like the Ghirahim household would be getting a new homestay.

"You have such a thick tail Miia! You look as though you could give a mermaid like me a run for her money in the water!" said the girl in the wheelchair, clasping her hands together in an oddly regal fashion as she complimented my fiance.

"Thank you, Mero…" Miia replied tensely, forcing a smile as the vein began pulsing in her forehead, "And your dress is so… interesting."

Still sitting on Centorea's back from when we were riding around the quay, resting my head against the blonde's shoulders, I glanced over at the two. Last time I complimented Miia's "thick tail," I had to request a new door from the ICEP and could only eat my meals through a mechanical straw for a week. She didn't like that. She tried to hide it though, but I could see the subtly cutting way she hit the new girl back. Miia was a girly girl in terms of fashion, maybe not with dresses but she always dressed fashionably and very feminine, so she made it a point to avoid goth culture. Commenting the other girl's lolita style dress was not a compliment.

"Yeah it's so fluffy and light! It would make flying so easy!" Papi chimed in, flying around her to try to get a better look.

"Fluffy!" Suu echoed, oozing her way closer to the woman as she were about to devour her. I hit her with a low charge taser and then gave her a bottle of water.

"They're easy to get on, too," the wheelchair girl explained, twisting her body and showing the lace on her back, "The laces of the dresses I specifically buy are made of spandex, so you don't have to worry about tying them, and they stretch to match your figure so they're always fashionable."

Papi whined and landed on Centorea's back and wrapped her wings around me.

"Please buy me some of these dresses, Boss!" she squealed.

Centorea quite clearly did not take this new passenger well and squeaked, dropping the water she had been drinking. On sheer instinct, she began bucking. Papi handled it fine thanks to the fact that she had wings, but even when the girl had left, Centorea got spooked and wasn't able to stop, so she just kept bucking, and would keep that up until she was free of all the weight on her back. I tried to hang on as best as I could, but hey, I'm no cowboy. Going on Centorea's morning runs was the closest thing I had ever been to riding a horse, so it didn't take very long for me to go flying through the air like a spear looking for something to- ahem -penetrate. Suddenly, my trajectory changed and I lurched to the side.

"Will you guys please be more careful? Papi, you know Honey is the only one Cerea will let ride her," Rachnera said, crawling out of a tree she had been watching us from while carrying me like a young, virile bride. It was vaguely emasculating, but oddly comfortable, even with her cold chitin claws.

"I got her," Miia said defeatedly as if this happened almost every day. I could see the devious smirk on her face, though, so I could tell she was just happy to find an excuse to get away from the girl accosting us.

"So, Miss Mero," I cleared my throat, having Rachnera set me down next to the woman before shooting herself back up into the tree, "Thank you for spending the day with us. It was nice to have company on our morning walk."

I glanced around, looking for Suu since she had been trying to get at Mero all day. It would be pretty bad if my favorite slime attacked the girl, even if she was a monster and the ICEP's rule on violence didn't apply to them, but I caught her out of the corner of my eye. Miia was making sure the girl was hydrated, almost enough to grow her to her adult form, and shot me a wink. As long as I distracted Mero, she had things over there. On a related note, Centorea had calmed down and was banging her head against a tree out of embarrassment a few feet away thanks to Miia's involvement.

Christ, I loved that woman.

"It was truly my pleasure, Mr. Ghirahim!" Mero gleamed, turning to me with a smile.

"I feel as though I should apologize for my family," I said, curling my lip, "They can be a bit much when you first meet them. I can promise you that they're good people though. I love every single one of them."

"Yes, I can tell the way you stare at them," Mero mentioned, "Between Rachnera, Centorea, and Miia, you have a much different shine in your eye than when you look at other girls."

Something was odd about the way she said that. First thing was that she was clearly good with names, having listed off three that she had only heard in passing an hour ago with ease, whereas I was pretty sure none of the other girls had even heard hers. Not only that, but she was pretty observant to see how I lit up when the girls crossed my mind. To be fair, I knew plenty of people who could pick up on subtle clues and had a flawless memory for the small things like that, but it was the way she said it that sent a chill down my spine. She went from bubbly and light to dark and intense in a split second. I watched her shoulders rise and fall and could tell her breathing had become short and slightly erratic, but just as quickly as this slightly psychotic side of her appeared, it vanished.

She looked up at me with that same bright smile she had been wearing since we had met like nothing had happened. Frankly, she was so gentle now, I questioned if I had hallucinated the past few seconds since there was no trace of that split personality from a second ago. There were plenty of ways to tell if someone was acting or putting on act. Their cheeks would tense up, their eyebrows would go all but completely still, and in some cases, the majority of their bodies would freeze as if they had physically left the entire conversation, but I didn't see anything like that with her. Her movements were too casual, too relaxed.

Either she was a complete sociopath, or she was hiding something. I don't know if she saw it on me, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see the loving smile on Miia's face drop in concern as she saw the emotion drain from my eyes in preparation.

"Tell me, what do you think of them?" I asked.

"What do you mean, Mr. Ghirahim?" Mero asked, tilting her head. I eyed her carefully as I continued.

"The girls, I mean. Clearly you can tell that they mean something to me, but what do you think about them?"

"They all seem very great!" Mero explained, "Even though you're all vastly different from each other and none of you are the same species, you all seem like the happiest family. I'm grateful for the chance to get to know you." I gave her a once over. That was an oddly political answer, giving me plenty of details on her feelings without truly answering the question.

"How I met Centorea was actually a pretty romantic story," I said, getting an idea.

"Oh?" Mero responded. It was so miniscule to the point where I wouldn't have been able to spot it if I hadn't been looking, but I saw her tense up slightly, unable to get a full breath for a second. Otherwise, there was no change in her composure.

"Better than most." I took a breath, getting into a mindset fit for storytelling as I began pacing around Mero's wheelchair. "She was my sparring partner for a long time. Miia had been staying with me for maybe a few weeks at that point, and I was just able to get back to my morning runs that I had been skipping out on during Miia's stay when I met her. We talked for a little bit about, discussed martial arts and what it meant to be a warrior, and then we began sparring for a bit."

Looking down at my audience, I could see that Mero was engrossed in the story, watching me intently with awestruck eyes, same as Papi's who was sitting on Rachnera's carapace up in the tree above us. The arachne wasn't as interested, having her head turned away from us, but I could still tell she was listening.

"After awhile, I had become pretty good with a sword- she had been training with them, by the way. However, we had apparently been stalked for awhile by a guy who I had beaten up on a social studies field trip with Miia after he had attacked us. This time, though, he brought friends to back him up."

"No!" Mero gasped quietly, holding her hands up to her mouth.

"Yes!" I shot back, smiling not because I enjoyed her reaction, even though that was also true, but because I could see her facade starting to crack, showing a small trace of tension in her movements which made them seem unnatural and showing me she was acting again, "So it was me alone against, what, five other guys? Centorea couldn't fight them because she's a centaur and would create an international incident if she hurt them, which I'm sure you can tell would be easy for her, so I did my best to fight them off. It was the hardest fight of my life, but with all of the training I had endured, and no small amount of luck, I ended up on top. After that… well, I could tell you, but I guess you could say I'm legally obligated not to. I don't want the ICEP coming down on me about the reward Centorea gave me."

I watched closely. Mero's face had dissolved from the previous enigmatic persona she had been keeping up into a darker, more peculiar one. It wasn't dangerous, or terrifying. It was just cold. Her breathing was coming to her short and ragged and her face was flushed.

"That is quite the romantic story," she said harshly. I didn't look at Rachnera directly, but I saw that she was now watching us very closely.

"Yeah, I guess you could say it is," I admitted, my smile dropping to a deadly scowl.

"Tell me, would you please? Are you and Centorea still-" she gulped "-close?"

"You could say that," my throat let out, my voice getting closer and closer to a growl as the world around me began to drown itself out.

"Interesting," the true Mero noted, her tone having the most guttural mewl to it, "I must say, I wasn't expecting you to be so open with your affections."

"And just what do you mean by that?" I was caught off guard, but I tried my best not to show it.

"You and Miia obviously have the same relationship, or at least you both know of your feelings for one another," Mero's smile widened to an unnatural width, showing even more of her mentally unstable side if not by the toothy snarl but by the fervent folding of her hands, "I can't help but wonder if you have other girls you'd like to get to know."

"I'd say there's one," I mentioned, pointedly looking up at Rachnera who looked at me like she was ready to eat Mero alive.

When Mero didn't respond, I turned to face her one more time, only to recoil at what I saw. She was twitching. Her hands furled and unfurled her dress until the mermaid tail she had been hiding fell out of its hiding place, her head ticking one way or the other like an off kilter metronome. Her breath was now coming in ragged pants. I swear, if she looked up at me, I would see the soulless orbs of a violent sociopath.

I didn't know nor care about anything else other than getting away from her. For the past three years, I had been fooled by the Interspecies Exchange Bill into thinking all monsters in the modern era were just like humans, but this mermaid was proof sitting right in front of me that that illusion wasn't true. The old myths and legends about their kind existed for a reason. Mero here was a reminder that some monsters were just that, monsters, and if I wanted to protect my family, I needed to get them as far away from this girl as possible.

"Darling!" Miia called behind me. I pivoted around, almost into a fighting stance, waiting to see if some kind of sea monster had captured the woman I loved and ready to fight it if need be, but I was happy to see this wasn't the case. Miia had a happy smile on her face as the tip of her tail wagged behind her, her fingers laced in front of her. She wasn't being attacked. I could calm down.

Actually, I think I would have preferred that alternative to some degree because standing next to her was Agent Smith looking utterly pissed out of her mind. Fortunately, it wasn't at me, but Mero who returned to her fake self and shrunk under the Agent's glare. Then, out of nowhere, Smith's anger disappeared, replaced with a coy smile.

"Ah! I see you've met Mero!" she introduced.

I glanced back and forth between the two of them with the most confused look possible on my face. Why… why did Smith seem like this was OK? Mero was probably the most dangerous liminal girl I had ever met, and I knew the ICEP was very stringent on the girls it let into the program, and being a coordinator of said program, Smith should have known about Mero's psychotic side. The girl was a great actor, but Smith knew how to spot that. Smith was lazy, but not incompetent, so I had to wonder why she was treating the girl with so much respect that she would give to anyone in my household. Mero wasn't that great of an actor to trick her.

I had to play along with this.

"So, you know her?" I asked.

"Yes, and you're about to get to know her better as well," Smith said with a strong implication in her voice as a smirk tugged on her lips. I ignored the obvious news and opted for a different route.

"Am I know? Just what do you know about this girl?" Perhaps my voice was a little harsh, because Smith had a tight response.

"Did she give you any trouble?" she asked with a disappointed shrug.

"Um… no? Why, did she give you any?" I didn't know how to react to Smith's exasperation. If she thought Mero was any kind of threat to my safety or the girl's, she would have treated Mero as such. Not like a disobedient child.

"She tends to do her own thing half the time, so she pushes her limits with my organization all the time," Smith explained casually, waving her hand.

"When Papi ran away repeatedly, you almost deposited- I mean, deported her," I pointed out, kicking myself for that verbal quirk she had gotten me in.

"Mero has special privileges, same as Centorea."

Right, species differences. I put it out of my mind and growled, pinching my nose out of frustration since trying to trick the answers I wanted out of people was beginning to annoy me. I turned to face Smith with the same look I would give any of my enemies, so frightening that Miia slithered away from me as I was going to hurt her, then stepped towards Smith. The agent knew what was up. Her hand went to her side, ready to draw her gun because she could see that if I didn't like where this conversation was going to go, I would probably try to hurt her.

I really wouldn't though. I know better than to challenge the government that way, especially considering they've been paying my bills for last the six months, but if I thought Smith was an enemy, I would give her hell. I would not let Mero nor her near my family again.

"Are you trying to screw me, Smith?" I snapped.

"I'm not into men," she shot back dryly, "Or women for that matter. I have too much work to do so that kind of thing is never really on the table for me. Not that I even cared for it, anyway."

"Don't start with that," I shot back, "Give me a straight answer." Agent Smith gave him a sad look, then sighed and gave him the respect she would give any of her superiors.

"I know I've pushed you a little too far in the past," she told him honestly, her voice raising in pitch ever so slightly to reflect her sincerity, "You've always helped me out before, and you've been so good with the girls that I thought you wouldn't mind another one staying with you, especially since you adopted Centorea and Suu so readily, and didn't mind me springing Rachnera and Papi on you without prior warning. I know that I've lacked giving you the respect you deserve." She took her glasses off. "As an official of the ICEP, my position dictates that I give you an apology for the ways I have wronged you, but as your friend, I will give you a personal response to your anger with me, and you have every right to be angry with me. I don't care what happens to you. The girls need to be happy. Humans are the dominant species on this planet, and the girls need someone who will help them find their place alongside us. I know you share that goal. I don't want to have to reassign Mero to a new household, especially since the paperwork would be a pain, but I suppose I could do you this one favor if you want me to."

I glanced down at Mero whose facade dropped once again to show a more vulnerable side to her. She looked panicked, distraught. Her eyes were glistening, showing that she was about to cry since I was treating her like garbage, and believe me, that interpretation wasn't too far from the truth. Anyone who wasn't safe for my family was trash.

"Anyone who would harm my family has no place near it," I told Smith, but she just blinked at me.

"Wait… what do you mean?" she asked. I tilted my head.

"I… what? I would think that that's pretty self explanatory."

"No, I mean…" Smith rubbed her temples, trying to clear her head, "She's not at all dangerous. Why do you think she is?"

"Uh… You're joking right?"

Anyone who applied to be a coordinator with the ICEP needed to have an incredible level of competence when it came to reading people and situations. Agent Smith was lazy and complacent, but I had figured this applied to her as well. At this point, with how vague her words were, I was conflicted between trying to decide if Smith couldn't tell that the girl was a serial killer in the making, or if I had misjudged her. A small part of me still hoped she was deserving of her role as coordinator. Then, a look of realization dawned on her face. One look at me and Mero standing next to each other was enough to give her a complete understanding of the situation.

"Ohhhh… No, I know she can come off like a kawaii Michael Myers sometimes, but trust me. That couldn't be further from the truth," Smith explained, "She's actually just a major slut!"

"Lady Smith!" Mero said, blatantly flustered and fanning her face with one of those Japanese folding fans that she pulled out of thin air it seemed. I sputtered, unable to respond by such a bold claim.

"Come here, Darling," she ordered, pulling me to a park bench, "I have a lot to explain to you about mermaid culture."

With the pair running off to conduct business, Mero was left alone. As much as she thought about it, she couldn't figure out what she did that might have given those two the impression that she was a villain from a horror movie, but she just couldn't shake a single feeling. Elated joy. Even though she probably wasn't going to get along with the master of the house right away, that only made her goals so much more exciting, and she couldn't stop herself from squealing. She couldn't focus on anything else.

The best part was that even though he was in love with Miia, he was a serial adulterer as well. She wouldn't need to try hard at all to become Kayo's mistress! As long as she was OK with sharing him between two others, she bet that it would only take her a week before she was sharing his bed or pulling him into the pool they were building for her at his house right now to ravage him all night long. Oh, happy day! She could not be blessed with luck anymore than this!

Still, he would need to accept her into his house. She wasn't too worried about that, though, since Agent Smith could be very persuasive. The only real issue would be if the girls would allow her to join in on their fun, but did they even know about his affairs? She couldn't be sure if they knew of his adultery, but Rachnera, Centorea, and Miia were right over there together, so it was probably best to ask now while she had all of their attention. As much as she knew running away from the ICEP's bodyguards this morning to find her host on her own wasn't the best idea, she could forgive herself if this was the outcome that had occurred from her excursion.

With dust trailing behind her, she rolled up to the girls in her wheelchair. They jumped from the sudden shock, but she didn't care. She had to ask them her question right now!

"Do you all mind if I sleep with your boyfriend?!" she shouted.

Some of the random park goers nearby heard this and eyed the group warily. As for Miia, Centorea, and Rachnera, they were too stunned both by Mero's sudden arrival and this vulgar question to notice them or even react right away. As their wits slowly came back, they at least knew one thing. With one single question, another love rival had appeared onto the scene. And things were just getting good!


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

I felt like an idiot for thinking Mero wanted to harm my family. Maybe I was beginning to view the world differently since I was finally getting some, and I was no longer able to see perversion in everything, but before the coordinator- I refused to call her by her name at this point -told me that Mero was a tragedy addict and was bound to try to steal me away from the others, I thought she was truly dangerous. To be fair, she still was, but in a different way than I had previously thought.

At the same time, she didn't settle into the household as easily as the others did. First of all, it was a pain for her to go up and down stairs so the house had to be modified to have both a new bathroom and her bedroom on the bottom floor which made the house's floor plan awkward and muddled. At the same time, the house needed to be a bit colder thanks to her fishy skin, which upset Miia pretty effectively. Thanks to that very same skin, she also had to wear nothing but bikinis when she was indoors, apparently wearing them outdoors as well as "immodest," and if that didn't make the girls jealous enough, they were constantly sliding off thanks to the mucus she secreted. Sure, I was grateful to get a flash of boob a hundred times a day, but I was beginning to realize that it was causing a lot of trouble. Trouble I wasn't sure I was willing to have.

When it was just the five of us here, it was always different when I saw someone naked. There was a lot of romantic competition for my affections, and even though I regularly showed I was attracted to the adults of the house, my true feelings were still somewhat vague before I declared my engagement ot Miia. Back then, being flashed was just fuel for the flames of war. Now, it was fuel for the flames that threatened to burn away the loving relationships I had built.

I didn't like it. I found it funny how six months ago, I would praised Jesus for the chance to see a real pair of boobs outside of the computer screen. Don't get me wrong, I still watched porn when I had the chance, but now? It just infuriated me, and not in the sexy way.

What was even worse was that I had to start cooking seafood. I hated seafood. Miia, Centorea, and Rachnera all hated seafood. Even Papi would cringe when she saw a roasted fish filet. Really, the only one who didn't care was Suu, but her body's chemical composition allowed her to absorb the nutrients from anything she touched, so she didn't count. Even keeping a fish in my refrigerator was painstaking since it made everything smell. I knew it was Mero's favorite food, or rather her culture's cuisine, so I tried to be as understanding as possible about the whole thing, but trying to find a way to make the seafood enjoyable eluded me.

"Master?" Suu noticed one day.

"Hm?" I asked her, turning from the video game I was playing so I could pay attention to her. My forehead furrowed when she told me what was on her mind.

As far as I knew, Suu couldn't speak aside from what she echoed from other people, but she could still communicate pretty well through nonverbal methods, so when she poked my cheeks, I knew what she was referring to right away. I hardly ever smiled, but that wasn't what she was getting at. As she continued poking my cheek, she traced the corner of my lips gently, leaving a trail of slime across them that I wiped off as best I could. I always had a scheming smirk on me, a permanent reminder that our mother's telling us "our face will stay like that" wasn't a threat but an objective truth. The only time my inhuman smirk left my face was when I was truly unhappy.

I laced my fingers with Suu's, getting my hand absorbed in the process, but I didn't mind. If nothing else, her concern for me was sweet and well-placed, so it brought a temporary grin to my lips, which in turn made Suu frown since she could tell it wasn't completely genuine.

"I'll try, Suu," I promised her, "Having one more person join the household is a little bit more difficult than I thought it would be."

"Mero is difficult?" she asked, using the words she had learned from all of us to form a complete sentence.

"I don't know if it's her specifically, or if I'm just not giving her the benefit of the doubt, but we can make things work. After all, most relationships can be fixed with a bit of work thrown in." I gave her a confident nod, letting her know how serious I was about that, but she shook her head at me.

"I love Rachnee, Cerea, Miia, and Papi is my girlfriend," she explained, but didn't give me time to process the last one, "But Mero can't be fixed."

With that, Suu gave me a tight hug, making sure that only the parts of her that were covered and wouldn't get me wet would touch me, then skipped out of the room. What she said… It was oddly profound. Moreover, it showed way more intelligence than I had previously thought she was capable of, and stunned me to no end. Speaking to me with the longest monologue she had given anyone in the household was plenty to latch onto, but it was also the compassion and empathy she showed me, and the way she explained that she didn't like Mero that really got to me.

Plus, I wasn't quite sure what she meant when she called Papi her girlfriend, but that also raised the question of if she understood love. Either way, I put that out of my mind. I could question that later, but for right now, I had to take Suu's words to heart and try to process what she told me. I treated her no different than I did anyone else in the house, even if all she did was ooze around the place before. The fact that she could now speak in full, fluid, sapient sentences didn't change that.

She didn't like Mero. The other girls tried to hide it, save for Rachnera of course, but they didn't like her either, but the last thing Suu said was "Mero can't be fixed." The only reason Suu said that was because I told her that, barring domestic abuse and a very small amount of pairs that weren't at all compatible with one another, any relationship could be fixed if the two people were willing to put the effort into it. Suu didn't seem convinced of that.

To be fair, I had no real problems with Mero other than the fact that she was terrible roommate. Sure, she said some pretty rude things every once in awhile while trying to compliment someone, a memory of her telling Miia her hair looked good "when she didn't care about it" coming to mind, but those things could be worked on with time and proper communication. My only real struggle was that I had five other people to consider in this. Not one of them liked her presence in the house, and for reasons other than that she was an adultress. If it had just been me and Mero living together, it would have been fine, but if she was universally hated by everyone in the household…

I ran my hands through my hair, ruffling it violently while groaning in anger because I knew this was wrong. I knew what I had to do, and I hated it. As much as I wanted all liminals to be happy living alongside humans, Mero living in my house wasn't a good thing for any of us, herself included. Eventually, things would break down. The peace I had worked so hard to achieve, the relationships I worked so hard to create, would come crumbling down around me.

She needed to leave.

Sighing, I stood up and began walking from my room to hers, dreading every step since there was no fun way to have this conversation. On the way, Papi flew over my head with something in her claws, paying me no mind. Centorea followed after her, making sure I was out of the way before apologizing profusely and galloping up the stairs after her, but I was way too anxious to care. It didn't process that Papi had ripped Centorea's blouse off and was running off with it until I was standing right outside Mero's door.

"Are you OK, Darling?" a friendly voice asked me with a kiss on my cheek.

Miia was standing next to me wearing the sexiest maroon bikini I had ever seen, perfectly coordinating with her scale color and revealing so much, a beach towel draped around her neck. I smiled sadly. It hadn't really shown itself since the engagement, but Miia's possessive side had returned with a vengeance, and as often as she could, she made sure that there was always someone in the same room with me and Mero, preferably herself. It most likely had to do with Mero's "friendly…"

Know what? I can't be nice about it. The coordinator was right- Mero was a major slut, and if I was going to kick her out, I needed to face the fact that that was part of the reason why I was going to kick her out.

I didn't answer Miia's question and opened the door, waiting for permission before entering the room whereas Miia just slithered right up to the mermaid, her pink hair tied up in pigtail buns to show off her fin ears, and asked if she could swim. I tuned out their conversation. While I settled into the chair in the corner, as far away from the pool as I could possibly be, I tried to think about what I would say, dimly watching the hypnotic way Miia swam around the pool. Before long, Mero snuck up next to me and wrapped her arms around mine.

"Do you have something on your mind, Beloved?" she asked. I grimaced at the name. Coming from anyone else in the house, it would have been sweet, but I didn't like hearing it from her.

"Yeah, I was hoping we could talk about something," I answered nervously, "And don't call me that, please?"

"Hey!" Miia yelled, a big smile on her face and her pointed ears twitching excitedly, "Come join me! The water is great!" I smiled back at her.

"I'm good Miia. Thanks, though," I tried to sound comfortable, but Miia didn't look pleased and splashed water at me with her tail.

I had never moved so fast in my life. Practicing martial arts as long as I have, as well as being an avid gamer, has given me lightning fast reflexes that very few people could match, but even that didn't compare to me teleporting across the room with how fast my dash was. I may have knocked Mero over in the process, but even Miia didn't see me move with how fast I was.

"Whoa," my fiance muttered, "That was incredible!"

I grabbed my shirt tightly over my chest, trying to get my heart to stop beating so fast. Blinking the vibrations out of my eyes, I tried to slow my breathing and focus on calming down, managing to respond to the two.

"Yeah… Thank you," I croaked, then moved over to help Mero up, "Sorry, are you OK?"

"I'm fine," she said, "That was quite incredible. You must be some kind of champion if you can dodge an attack like that."

This conversation might have made Miia jealous because she pouted her lips and dove under the water. Mero smiled maliciously. She must have been waiting for a chance to be alone with me, because she didn't waste any time wrapping her arms around my neck and planting a hard kiss on my lips. It was wet, and cold. I would also have to describe it as sloppy if only because her lips secreted slime like the rest of her body did, but if it weren't for that, the kiss would have been rather nice. Either way, I pushed her off.

"This is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about," I said frustratedly.

"Oh, are you finally coming to me?" Mero pondered, oblivious to how pissed I was, drowning herself in her tragic romances and preventing any kind of lucidity, "Has the wicked sea witch finally seduced the noble prince? Oh, how I've longed for this day! Come, Beloved! We must spirit away before-"

"Mero, please stop talking," I pleaded. I didn't have any edge to my voice, but she stopped mid sentence, the smile still plastered on her face.

"I can't let you keep doing this," I tried to explain, "I know you want to find love, or… tragic love, or something, but I don't have feelings for you. I love Miia, and Centorea, and Rachnera. While there may be a place for you in my heart, it won't be as a lover."

This was distracting me from the real matter at hand. Maybe if I had opened with kicking her out of the house instead of trying to break her heart, the message might have sunk in quicker, but she was still adamant on trying to get me in bed. She bit her lip lecherously and tried to get her hands on me, moving in for another kiss.

"That is what every prince says right before he falls for the seductress! Oh, this is perfect! You really know your role!" she praised.

"You don't understand, Mero," I tried, my brain working on over time to try to convince her that I didn't love her, or at the very least that I didn't want her, "I have worked way too hard for what I have to let it come crashing down now. I won't let you continue to break us up."

"You can still have me!" Mero bellowed, "Someone like you can have every woman in the world if he wanted them! I don't think the others will mind a bit of infidelity, and you don't have to tell them either!"

What was this? Shaking? I couldn't be losing control over this?

"If you had come to me six months ago, I would have happily fallen into your arms. I would have jumped in bed with any woman that had shown me any form of attachment or affection, and if I'm being honest, that's part of what drew me to Miia when we first met until I fell for her for real. Then, Cerea and Rachnee came along and I had three women who were not only lovely and beautiful but truly cared about me and loved me, and I fell for them too, but with them, it wasn't because they just wanted to sleep with me. I didn't realize it at first, but I cared about them too, same as Miia and not because they were the only people to love me."

My voice began to quake with every passing word and the shaking in my hands only grew worse so I had to ball them into fists. My heart was pounding. It felt like tears could spill over at any minute.

"Then you come along. You try your hardest to sleep with me, to ruin my relationships, and all because of your stupid tragedy fetish. I didn't realize it until now, but this contrast you've given me, showing me what it's like when someone loves you and lusts after you, and why one is just better than the other-" I laughed a cold, humorless laugh "-well, I guess you can say you've given me standards."

It was harsh, maybe a little too harsh the way I told her that she gave me standards and didn't meet them. She wasn't my favorite person in the world, but wasn't that a bit uncalled for? She may have been a slut, she may have even been a homewrecker, and I wanted her to get away from my family as soon as possible, but I didn't have to insult her.

Slowly, she pulled her hands away. Sliding backwards, her lips parted in a silent "oh" before she turned her eyes to the ground and absentmindedly stroked her elbow. I hurt her. It was human nature for me to want to comfort her at that point, but I knew it wouldn't help anyone, and would probably end up making things worse, so I fought the urge and turned to look at the water, scratching the back of my head tensely. I came in here to kick her out, but this was just adding insult to injury. Why had been so forceful in telling her? Why had I even told her in that in the first place instead of focusing on what I came in here to do? And what… what was missing right now?

Oh, no.

"Mero, question," I said hurriedly, my heart jumping in my throat.

"Hm?" she responded sadly.

"Where's Miia?"

My eyes were trained on the pool, and I think that's when Mero knew exactly what was going through my head. She was slow to realize it, but Miia had been underwater too long. Lamias were good swimmers, having traits of water snakes and all that, but they didn't have any lung capacity, so Miia should have resurfaced halfway through that conversation. She should have been watching me and Mero chat, and she definitely should have definitely heard the rant I just went on. Where was she?

WHERE WAS SHE?!

I didn't even hesitate. The second before my feet left the tile, I saw the way the pool water slished and sloshed and was reminded of stormy waves destroying entire armadas of warships, a sense of intense fear and dread filling my body and very soul to the brim, but I jumped in anyway. As soon as I was submerged, I dove down. I didn't have the greatest lung capacity either, and the pool was deep, but I would not be defeated by this; not when Miia's life was on the line. However, it wasn't being underwater or my lack of vental endurance that was the issue.

It was the pressure. No, not the pressure of a twenty foot deep pool, the mental and emotional toll this was taking on me. The water around me was like the hands of death and darkness wrapping around me, strangling me, suffocating me, freezing me. I hated every second of this. The deeper I went, the more I wanted to save myself and swim back to the surface. I hated this. I hated it. Please, make it stop.

No, I could handle it. I had no choice.

I reached the bottom of the pool and wrapped my arms around Miia's waist, feeling my lungs about to burn from the lack of oxygen. If I had to carry her, I wouldn't make it to the surface. Hell, I wouldn't make it even if I didn't have a two hundred fifty pound tag along.

But I would not be defeated. I refused to be. This was the stupidest, most idiotic thing I had ever done, but now that I was here, I had no choice but to continue. I would not give myself any other choice. Even though I didn't think things through like the Slytherin I claimed to be, I had been told I was more like a Gryffindor at times, and now was the perfect time to put my passion and persistence to the test.

Planting my feet on the bottom of the pool, I pushed off as hard as I could. The water pushed against my face, stinging my cheeks as it glazed over them, and blinding me as the pressure hit my eyes, but I could quickly feel the water pressure lowering. Light was starting to seep its way behind my eyelids. Next thing I knew, I was airborne, and falling away from the water, hitting the pool tile with a hard thud and coughing up a lung to try and breath.

"What happened in here?!" I heard a voice demand. Centorea. Her tone was harsh. Par for the course, really.

"Master!" gasped Papi. Her voice was normally whiny and loud, but there was a small squeak to it loaded with fear. That wasn't normal for her.

"We need to warm Miia up with our body heat! She's going into hibernation!" That one was Mero. Glad to see she was doing some good for the family finally.

I couldn't stand. I curled up onto the floor of the room in a tight ball, shivering and hyperventilating. I was even crying. I couldn't stand it, being drenched and having to swim under the water. It didn't matter how deep the water was, but I couldn't stand pools, or being submerged, or anything like that.

I felt Centorea's hand touch my back. I could tell it was hers since it was dry and human shaped, meaning that it couldn't have been the other two, Suu, or Rachnera, and normally that would have been a comforting gesture. This time, I shot bolt upright and slapped her hand away. My eyes were frantically searching for a way out. I was still hyperventilating, and tears streamed my face, but after Centorea's touch, the crying stopped and every fiber of my being told me to find a safe place to hide and wait things out, uncaring for anyone else. I managed to push my way past her, Mero and Papi. Suu and Rachnera were outside waiting for me, but I barrelled my way past them, shaking Rachnera's hand of my shoulder when she tried to touch me too.

As soon as I got to my room, I threw off all my clothes, didn't care where they went, and curled up under the covers of my bed naked and cold. The crying returned. The hyperventilating stopped almost immediately, and since I was laying down, the lack of breath and light head didn't bother me, so I was able to scream. I wailed as loud as I could. I didn't care if anyone could hear me because all I knew was that I was scared. No one else was there as far as I knew. Just me. Drenched.

I don't know when I passed out. I don't even know how long I was asleep, but I woke up every once in awhile when someone who come into my room to check on me, stay awake the whole time they were there, and go back to sleep when they left. They didn't tell me anything major. To be honest, I don't even think I would have cared. Maybe they sensed this and wanted to wait until I was mentally stable to tell me any kind of the drama that may have transpired after I got Miia to the surface.

The first person that came into my room was Centorea. She hesitated to touch me, but when I didn't react either way to her reaching out, she slowly put her hand on my forehead and ran her hand through my hair. She didn't say anything, though. She just comforted me as best she could and trotted out of the room. Next was Papi.

"Um… Master?" she said, hiding halfway behind the door, "I love you. OK? Just so you know…"

I think I managed to tell her I love her too. Some base, primal part of me that relied nothing more on instinct must have known that she needed to know I loved her. Suu never visited me, though, but I think she just didn't know how to handle this yet. Instead, Rachnera was next. She walked into my room, hands on her hips, saw the mess I had made and began to pick everything up.

"This is a mess. You can't let yourself catch a cold," she said sternly, but at that point, I could hear the concern in her voice.

Scuttling out of the room, a couple minutes passed before I could hear the dryer tumbling downstairs, then she came back in with a bath towel and a heater, plugging the latter into the wall. After that, she sat me up and dried off my hair. I didn't resist her. I didn't have any strength to.

After that, I managed to wake up for real. My head was pounding, my throat was dry, and every single part of my body was stiff like I just went through 24 hours of nonstop jiu jitsu training. I found a glass of water on my bed, courtesy of Centorea with a note that said "we love you" followed by everyone's signature, and downed the thing. I would have to explain to everyone why I freaked out like that. Drinking water, baths, and showers are all fine since there's real earth (or at least porcelain bath tile) underneath me the whole time, and even going to the beach doesn't fill me with the same fear pools do. I know other people who had the same experience I do view it differently, but I just… I can't even touch pool water without freaking out.

When I was ten, at a pool party, a mean girl a year older than me held me under the water until I couldn't breath anymore. I didn't pass or need to go to the hospital, you could barely even say that I drowned, but the asphyxiation freaked me out so much that I haven't gone into a pool since then. Today was the first day in a long time I had been completely submerged. Fear is a funny thing, yeah? Some people have near death experiences when they drown and have no problems getting back in the water, but one rough experience and swimming sends me into a crazed panic attack.

"Ah, you're awake," a voice came from my door. Tiredly, I looked over and saw the coordinator, her black power suit as clean cut as always as she stepped into the room. She looked genuinely concerned.

"Yeah…" I managed. I would have told her it was good to see her, but it was never good to see her.

"I… I didn't mean for this to happen," she said, biting her lip, "If I had known Mero moving in was going to cause so many problems, I never would have allowed her to stay."

"Live and learn," I said shortly, my voice still scratchy so I had to rub my neck and gulp what little saliva I had, "Where is she?"

"She's in the car waiting for me," the coordinator explained, "After today, she figured it was best to move out. After everything that transpired today, with Miia's accident and you yelling at her, she feels as though she's caused everyone in the house to feel unhappy."

"That's best," I said. The coordinator frowned.

"You don't seem yourself," she noticed, "You're never this short, and you don't say things that are this… direct. Even when you're trying to be serious. Your sentences are always filled with fillers like 'probably' and 'kind of' like you're trying to sound sly."

"Long day," I replied after some silence. I didn't want her to be in my room and was trying to get her out.

"In any case, I want you to know that Miia is going to be alright," she sighed.

I glanced over curiously.

"She is in hibernation, though," the coordinator's voice got low out of worry, "Since the A/C had been running all day and the pool's temperature was too low, she wasn't able to get out of the water before her body shut down, and then she ran out of breath. We managed to resuscitate her, but it will be awhile before she really wakes up. At least two and a half months."

"I can't live without her," I whimpered. Showing this kind of emotional openness to the coordinator wasn't pleasant for me, but I couldn't hold it back.

"I know," she admitted, "I've known about your affairs for awhile now. It's part of the reason why I offered you the marriage proposal in the first place." I laughed coldly.

"You're sadistic."

With that, the coordinator wished me good health and left the building. Taking a few deep breaths to compose myself, I tried to push the last few events out of my mind and get dressed, a blush coming to face after realizing that I had been naked for that whole visit. Suppressing that memory as well, I put on some sweatpants and a thick hoodie and went downstairs where I knew the rest of the family save for Miia would be waiting. You would think I would have gone to check on my fiance first, but I knew she wasn't going anywhere, so it seemed like a good idea to ease the minds of the four people who were currently conscious and let them know I was alright.

To my surprise, they didn't say anything. Not a single word. They just came up to me, Rachnera and Centorea giving me soft kisses on my lips, while Papi gave me a strong hug, and Suu held my hand like she does. I gave them a weak smile. Emotionally, I was a wreck, but I would ultimately be fine. Physically, I might have been in worse shape, the soreness that stems from fear completely wrecking, but that would fade in time, too.

I wasn't satisfied with this just yet, and stayed a bit longer. What else was I supposed to do? Facing the truth, I knew I wasn't ready to see Miia's prone form just yet, and I had to suck it up and admit I needed the comfort, so I straddled Centorea's back as she went to kneel down and wrapped my arms around her waist. Reaching over her shoulder, she ran her hand through my hair again. After that, Papi jumped on my back and nuzzled her head into my neck. Rachnera was next, scooting up to Centorea's side and leaning against me, having to push her carapace out of the way to do so, but managing. Then, Suu stole my hand on Centorea's other side so she could hold it.

These girls… my family… they were too good for me. I really didn't deserve them, but I wouldn't be happy without them either. They didn't deserve a pervert like me.

"You're the greatest man I've ever known," Centorea said softly, "We don't know what spooked you from the water, but we know it was something that you're afraid of, and you dove in to save Miia without letting it control you. You're incredible."

"You're the only man I know whose not only accepting of spiders, but attracted to them, too," Rachnera stated, "I'd be an idiot if I thought any less of you."

"I don't know how to be poetic like that," Papi said, "But I wouldn't want to live with anyone else. Harpies don't have dads, but if we did, I would imagine my dad would be someone like you. At least, I hope he would be."

"I love you!" Suu finished up.

I smiled. For the first time in at least a week, I gave a hearty, true smile that Miia would have been happy to see. I was going to miss my lamia, Miia, the first woman I ever truly loved and who loved me the same, but these four weren't going anywhere. I had to be strong for them. With them here, that would be easy. They say that the powers of love and friendship are cliches that don't mean anything, and for a long time, I thought that was true, never having any real lasting friendships, or deep and meaningful relationships, and I can't say I ever had a real girlfriend either, but these girls changed my mind. If they hadn't taught me what true love felt like, Miia would be dead right now.

One day, she would come back, and I would be there to greet her with open arms and the biggest kiss she would ever have, but for now? I wouldn't let everything else go to waste.


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Sweet, merciful Shiva, I hate the winter," I cursed, carrying six bags of groceries in one hand with the other placed firmly in the pocket of my military jacket. I breathed as deeply as I could since that kind of warms me up, but since it was cold enough for a gentle snow to fall, and with the roads already covered in slush, it didn't help all that much.

"You don't like the cold?" Centorea laughed at me, holding a hot coffee in both hands.

Over the past couple months, once the weather had cooled down, my lover had switched out her sleeveless blouses for warmer clothes. At the moment, she was wearing a navy petticoat with big black buttons, with a scarf and beanie both a matching maroon, but no matter what, she never put anything other than a pareo over her horse half, and refused to go anywhere without her fake sword. I never thought she was anything other than beautiful.

"No, it's just not easy to train with this weather," I complained, "Hitting the bag in the basement is way too cold, and running with this sludge out is kind of dangerous. Other than that, I love winter. It's beautiful." Having said that, I turned to her and grinned. "Speaking of, how ya doin'?"

She looked down into her cheek and blushed deeply, biting the lid nervously. Then, I laced my fingers in hers and she squeaked. Even after 10 months together, she was got flustered whenever I showed her some kind of cutesy affection like that, and with Rachnera's constant challenges, I learned to become a huge flirt without being unnecessarily perverted about it. Don't get me wrong, I was still a huge pervert, and I guess I had to be to make feet for children's stockings with a centaur and an arachne, but at least now I could separate romantic and lecherous.

This winter had been especially hard on me, though. It had been four months since Miia went into hibernation, so long that at this point we were calling it a coma, and she still didn't show any signs of coming out of it.

"You're thinking about Miia again, aren't you?" Centorea said, frowning at me.

"Y-yeah. Sorry…" I mumbled.

Whenever she crossed my thoughts, the others could tell by the deep scowl that overshadowed all of my features, matched only by the pain my eyes. I knew it wasn't my fault, and I had been seeing a therapist for this kind of dark thought, as well as others, but I still relatively blamed myself for what happened to me. I knew Mero felt the same since she would send a different care package from under the sea every week. You would think that that might help in some way, even if it was only a little bit, but her efforts to make up for her time living with us only made me feel worse because of how I hurt her.

It's amazing how one passing phrase can stick with us for this long. The sad part is that everything I said was completely true. She had given me standards. Six months prior to her arrival, my internet search history had more porn on it than the archives of most triple-x rated websites, and I would have happily jumped into bed with Mero simply because sex was all that I cared about and "pervert" was my only personality trait. Nothing would have stopped me. Even now, I could tell just how well the mucus she secreted would have worked as lube, and how great a tit job would have felt because of that, but after six months of living with the others, I knew better. Miia, Rachnera, and Centorea's constant affection, the warm hugs, the long cuddle sessions and gentle kisses; they not only truly loved me despite my lascivious nature, but they also taught me what love truly felt like. The showed me the difference between lust and love, and why I valued them both, not just one or the other, and yet also why I wouldn't want to harm either of them.

So, six months was all it took for me to not want to jump in bed with a slut who would hurt my family. Neat.

That said, another thing I was in therapy for was not blaming Mero for what happened to Miia either. If I wasn't suffering from the guilt of the whole situation and blaming myself for Miia's condition, that self loathing would turn to anger towards the only other person in the room at the time. That wasn't fair to her. It wasn't my fault, and as much as I hated to admit it, it wasn't Mero's fault either.

"She's going to be alright, you know?" Centorea said, breaking me away from my rather depressing thoughts.

"I know Cerea, but can you blame me for being a bit upset by the whole thing?" I challenged.

"Absolutely not," Centorea shot back right away, "I'm just saying that the doctor's say that her condition is stable and she could wake up any day now. This is normal for poikilotherms when they get too cold."

"Yeah, but only when they get too cold. And it wouldn't have happened if…" I was about to blame myself again by saying that would have been fine if it weren't for me, but stopped myself halfway. When she noticed I was looking down again, Centorea squeezed my hand. I looked up and she was smiling at me brightly like a freaking moron, a usual mood for her, using pulling a finger from her coffee cup to point at her lips. I sighed. She does this all the time, but no amount of rolling my eyes and trying to be sad could keep the smile from my face whenever she did it, and knowing this pattern well, I leaned up and kissed her right on the lips.

"Mmm, warm," I moaned after she pulled away.

"You want some more?" she whispered with a flirty smile.

"Yes, please," I said cutely.

Being several feet taller than me thanks to her horse half, I was never able to steal a kiss from her like I could with Rachnera and Miia in most circumstances, and if she wanted a kiss, she was in complete control over it. She had to lean down to get one from me. Even if I somehow managed to give her a quick peck, she was still a centaur and could kick me halfway to Taiwan if she wanted to.

However, when she kissed me, it was one of the warmest experiences ever. All three of the girls are different that way. Miia has always tried to be the best wife and mother possible, filling the second one better than the first because she can't cook or clean, and her lips reflect the comforting warmth of home, melting into me and letting me know I'm safe as her arms wrap tightly around me. Rachnera, on the other hand, is intense and passionate, as deeply sensual as her overall demeanor is seductive. When it comes to Centorea, she's always cared first and foremost about being my knight, my partner if she's having a good day, and kissing her has this romantic feel to it, like a never ending honeymoon that only makes me want to kiss her more. For her, there's more emotional appeal than there is sexual like Rachnera or mental like with Miia.

She grabbed my arms and began trailing up and down my biceps, then down to my forearms before ending in my hands then working their way back up. She had this quirk where she would put every part of her lips into the kiss, but would only use the very tips of them as if using everything she had to find a single point on me to strike. The way she did it had a subtle tickle to it that subconsciously pulled me in an effort to ease the disturbance with more of the same, her themselves being as strong and flexible as the rest of her body, and I wouldn't have put it past her to have practiced this technique to make me want to keep up this duel as long as possible. After all, she wasn't this good a kisser when we first got together, and I found it easy to leave her embrace. Now, I found it hard to stop. Probably part of the reason we first consummate our love last month. You would think it would be weird that centaurs have two sets of the promised land, but it actually works out pretty well. Also, it's a pretty amazing medical curiosity.

Still, I managed. We only just got off Main Street so there was still a crowd around us, and were starting to get weird looks. I struggled to push her away. Not because she was too strong for me, which she was and if she wanted to take advantage of me, she easily could, but because I didn't want to.

"Later," I scolded her, then flicked her forehead. She giggled lightly and straightened her beanie before we began walking the rest of the way home.

"You should check your phone, by the way," she informed me.

"Oh, yeah. Jacket pocket." Normally, I keep my phone in my pants, but with a jacket heavy enough for early December, I kept it in the chest pocket, so when we're pressed against each other, Centorea would be able to feel it even though I couldn't.

So, we kept walking, but every single text message I read only got me more and more concerned, and Centorea saw this. She didn't say anything, but it was obvious something was on my mind. It took me awhile, but I realized she was staring and I decided to give her some kind of clue as to what made me walk into a pole a few streets back.

"39 text messages, and not a single one of them are making sense to me," I explained.

"What do they say?" Centorea asked, leaning over my shoulder.

"I can't read half of them either. Oh, and there are a few pictures, but the only thing I can make sense of is that everyone seems to be freaking out more than usual." I showed her one that had Papi's head in a lamp with grown up Suu oozing from the sink and Rachnera knocked sideways against the wall, and Centorea's face showed the same concern mine had.

"What in the…"

"I know right?"

Suddenly, my phone began buzzing. I hadn't even gotten to the last eight text messages before the name "Dad" popped up on the collar ID. That was probably the weirdest thing yet. I hadn't talked to either of my parents in months since Burizon didn't have good service in Antarctica, so I was tempted to answer the phone right away. The only thing that worried me about it were the 39 previous text messages that were beginning to make a bit more sense now. The phone call was giving me a few ideas as to why they were so frantic.

"Dad!" I answered, "I haven't heard from-"

"WHY ARE THERE SO MANY EXTRASPECIES IN YOUR HOUSE?!" he yelled.

"Dad, I can-"

"THEY SAY THEY LIVE HERE BUT THEY'RE ALL DIFFERENT GENOTYPES!"

"Dad-"

"THIS ECOSYSTEM SHOULDN'T BE POSSIBLE! WHERE ARE YOU?! THEY SAY THEY LIVE HERE!"

"Oh, my God, I'm coming home!"

I shut off my phone and pinched the bridge of my nose as hard as I could, taking a sharp and long breath. I held it for even longer. It was like I was trying to get an oxygen high to try to calm myself before the inevitable storm I was about to charge head first into. Before I had even let it go, I turned to Centorea. It made my voice higher pitched and tighter than normal.

"We should hurry home," I told her importantly but didn't give her any warning before I jumped on her back and kicked her sides. She yelped, but her instincts told her to go, so she broke into a gallop and didn't bother slowing down since she could tell this was important.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"I… forgot my parents exist," I cringed. Centorea laughed at me so hard, her gait faltered for a second.

"Really?" she tried not to giggle any louder.

"Yeah, which means I forgot to tell them about…" I didn't need to finish that statement because Centorea doubled her speed, her previous humor replaced with entirely valid frustration.

"How could you not tell them about us? I'm not even mad that you didn't tell them that you're seeing someone, but it seems kind of important to let your parents know you have five other people staying with you, especially when they're different species!"

"That's true, and I'm not denying as much," I agreed, and we were silent for a bit until I got another thought just before we rounded the corner onto our street, "I'm just curious how none of the pictures the other three sent had my dad in them. Can they not work a camera?"

"I don't think they can work a phone to begin with," Centorea guessed, "The only one of them with hands doesn't have skin."

That thought hadn't crossed my mind. Suu was a slime and would damage the phone, Papi didn't have fingers so she couldn't do anything with it anyway, and even though Rachnera had actual fingers, she would need skin or at least something other than claws to use the touch screen. It made me realize just how much I had been holding Centorea's hands the last four months, and it hadn't occurred to me that I only held Centorea's hand since Miia went into her coma. Come to think of it, perhaps leaving the smartphone I got for Centorea with the other three wasn't the best idea. Maybe I should just get a landline?

I would have to deal with that problem another time. When Centorea and I pulled into the house, I saw a car I didn't recognize parked sloppily in the driveway with a crap ton of luggage in the backseat which I assumed to be my parents.' Taking a deep breath, and cursing the gods silently, I jumped off Centorea and dove right in.

"For the last time! Get out of my house!" came Rachnera's voice, but I didn't see her anywhere. Only her webs littered all over the house and blinding the lights.

"You get out of our house!" came my mom's voice behind the half wall to the kitchen, and I saw the middle age blonde, still very pretty and fit for her age, poking over it with my favorite whisk in her hand, "Oh, hi honey! It's good to see you!" My mom smiled at me, but had to duck under the wall when several webs shot out at her.

"Do NOT call him that!" came Rachnera's voice again, but I still couldn't find her.

"I got her!" I heard my dad from the closet and he stepped out, covered in blood and scratches. He was standing over Papi who was tied up in his prized, antique boles as she tried to peck her way out of the bindings, but she did a real number on him since he was covered in blood and claw marks.

Suu jumped in between the two and fired a jet stream of water at him, launching him back into the wall before my mom threw my favorite colander at her. Right about then is when Centorea decided to walk in. I saw her go for her sword while mentioning something about honor, and right about then is when I got pissed.

"ALRIGHT ENOUGH," I shouted.

My voice echoed off of the walls, and for a second, I thought I saw the pictures that still remained on their perches shake for a second, but that wasn't as important as everyone in the room stopping and staring at me. Everyone was frozen and silent. Even the air in the room went from murderous tension to an awkward pause in the violence. Rachnera jumped down from the ceiling, not that I knew where she jumped from, and glared at both of my parents, while those two remained hiding behind their respective barricades. I crossed my arms.

"You guys done?" I hissed.

"Who are these girls, and why are they living in our house?" my dad shot back at me.

"You should have told us about this and maybe no one would have gotten hurt," my mom bounced off.

"Can you just… listen for one second?" I challenged, but even if I could control five demihumans, my parents were a bigger threat.

"We're going to need to talk about this-" my mom tried, but Rachnera shot at her.

"Don't talk to her like that!" my dad struck out.

Everyone began arguing again, Papi managing to break away from the boles but Suu adamant about not letting her fight again, and even Centorea tried to but in, but made things worse. God bless her, she tried to explain the situation but she was so proud and my parents were so… unique… that she only heard them insult her and wanted to fight them herself. Fortunately, before things could get out of hand, I managed to break it up again.

By punching a hole through the wall.

Everyone in the room jumped in fear. The girls had never seen me that angry, and while my parents had since they had raised me, they knew I would never react so poorly as commit property damage. I was silent as I glared at every individual in the room. What none of them realized was that punching the wall wasn't a matter of anger, but instead, was a calculated move to control the flow of the conversation. It wasn't even meant to calm them down. All I wanted was to gather their attention.

My parents were strong personalities. I would never be able to overpower them in a battle of wills, but I would always defeat them in a battle wits, since what I lacked in willpower, I made up for in cunning. There was one thing and one thing only that I could think of that would calm this situation down, and in order to succeed with it, I needed every move I made to be perfectly enacted, without any flaw. At the same time, this maneuver would satisfy multiple objectives at once.

Again, all I needed was their attention. Silently, I walked in between the group, not bothering to sidle passed Centorea but walking as if I knew would move for me, which she did, and making sure to only meet my dad's eyes for a brief second as I passed him. My path was quick and streamline, and my speed a normal walking pace, but filled with purpose in every stride.

"Where you going? We need-" Dad called after me. He was about to say we needed to talk about this, but I beat him to it with two words.

"Shut up," I said darkly.

Quickly, I dove into Miia's room. With everything going on outside, I was worried she may have been hurt in some way, but she was just as I left her. The oxygen tubes were still in nose, she was still her pink fuzzy pajamas, and the blue and plaid flannel blanket I bought at the Woodsman's Warehouse specifically for her was still draped around her lower half. She was completely undisturbed throughout this whole thing. Smiling in relief, I brushed her hair to the side, gave her a tender kiss on her forehead, and walked back out.

Apparently, my plan worked. The four demihumans I had come to love were looking at me with worried expressions, understanding what I just did, and even my parents looked a little unnerved. When they saw that their enemies were completely ignoring them for something that made them look like they were waiting on the news about the last few minutes of labor for their wife's first child, they could tell that it was something to pay attention to.

"She's fine," I told everyone. My parents were understandably confused, but the girls relaxed easily enough, letting their shoulders drop.

"Good," Centorea stated, "I'm glad she didn't get caught up in this."

"Could you imagine what she would do if she was here, though?" Rachnera added, shooting me a knowing look, "If everything isn't perfect for that girl, she goes insane."

"Dude, she once quizzed me on her favorite movie, which is the Notebook by the way, and because I didn't know the lead actor's name she didn't talk to me for a week," I chimed in, smiling lightly, "Oh, and Ryan Gosling in case anyone was interested."

"You'd think she'd put that effort into her cooking!" Papi laughed, and as infectious as always, she got us to laugh as well.

"She needs to stay the hell away from my kitchen!" I yelled as a joke, but you know, not really as a joke. Either way, it got everyone to laugh

Then, I turned to my parents who looked as though as they had stepped into a wax museum filled with nothing but xenomorphs, but I could tell they were starting to get it. My mom put down the whisk.

"So… we should talk," I told them.

(...)

My mom was a crybaby. She was the most lovely woman I had ever met, the nicest individual, and when I was a kid, she was the acting head of the PTA and who organize every single charity event, Christmas concert, and bake sale just to make sure everyone involved was happy. She also cried. A lot. One time there was a baby fawn in our backyard, just a little too small for its own good, and she bawled like a baby. It was always cute things that did her in.

After meeting Suu and Papi, she was already gone. When things got settled, and the dust had cleared, after explaining to both of them that I was dating Rachnera and Centorea- I figured I could tell them about Miia in more detail once the fight wasn't still fresh in all our minds -we all did our part to clean up the living room and set everything right. Apologies were made, friendships were had, and introductions made up a good part of the afternoon. After a fight like they all had, I think it was safe to say that first impressions were no the best, so my dad played his role and got everyone a drink. Once everyone was at least somewhat settled, that's when crap hit the fan once again.

"Oh, my God, I love them!" My mom wailed, tears falling down her face.

"Mom, please," I grumbled, running my hand through my hair anxiously, "They're adults. Grown women."

"I'm going to call you Mommy!" Papi cheered, wrapping her wings around Mom's neck and curling up in her lap.

"Mommy! Mommy!" Suu repeated, pulling on Mom's sleeve and waving her other frantically as her slimy face morphed into a smile.

"I mean… Kind of…" I clarified.

My mom had always wanted a daughter to do stereotypically feminine things like get their nails done, go to the salon, and go to the mall to shop for clothes. Given Papi and Suu's less than human physiology, that might be kind of difficult. Although, watching how Mom lovingly braided Papi's hair and patiently helped Suu with her speech, already fully understanding her lack of any truly comprehensive speech patterns, she probably already knew that and just didn't care.

She was just happy to suddenly have a new pair of daughters to come home to. Not to mention her two new daughter in laws. Rachnera sat off to the side, sipping her coffee and slowly getting drunker and more comfortable with my parents' presence in the house as a result, and would occasionally throw off one liners to my mom who would laugh every time. More often than not, they were at my expense.

"Your wings are so pretty, Papi!" Mom told the girl, "I bet Kayo doesn't let you fly too much, doesn't he? I couldn't blame him if he liked to use you as a blanket."

"Yeah, he's pretty strict," Rachnera threw in, her voice playing at a dreadfully sympathetic tone, "Doesn't even let anyone in the kitchen half the time. Please help us, Mother! He's starving us!"

"Kayo!" Mom mock scolded me, "Feed these poor girls! They must be wasting away!"

"He even keeps me locked in the attic all day!" Rachnera started fake crying, "It's just so awful!"

The two started laughing back and forth to one another, and Mom began telling the girls stories about me from when I was a kid. Thing is, it was exclusively the embarrassing ones. At the very least, it was obvious that she was welcoming of the new members of the family since she was so willing to throw me under the bus like that, but I couldn't help but cringe at some of what she told them. Every time Rachnera and Centorea shot me an amused look, I wanted to run and hide.

"I am in Hell," I said aloud dryly, "This is Hell. My parents embarrassing me in front of a group of beautiful women? Take me now, Lord Satan."

"It's OK, Master. You know we still love you," Centorea said after topping off my dad's drink, then wrapping her arms around me, "But I'm still going to hold the story about getting your dick pierced over you."

"I hate you," I said flatly, "I really hate you. You're awful."

She pecked my cheek and went to sit down with my mom again. If I'm being honest, aside from the actual combat and potential for murder that I was going to have to make it a point to hide from the coordinator, one of my biggest worries was of both of my parents would be accepting of this new lifestyle. More accurately, I wanted them to approve of and get along with each of the girls, particularly the ones I was going to marry. Fortunately, it didn't seem too difficult. Obviously, my parents both loved the smaller ones as a chance to re-do this whole parent thing, especially with girls since I never had a sister, and even though both of them were clearly flustered by the bigger ones, they didn't seem to have too many issues.

Rachnera specifically got along with my dad. They both had the same taste in music, something that Dad held with the utmost importance, and the same vulgar sense of humor, so they became fast friends immediately. Granted, my mom was terrified of insects so she was a bit put off my girlfriend's spider half. They got along rather nicely, but I knew it was going to be a few months before Mom finally got the courage to get within three feet of Rachnera, and even longer to give her a hug. Regardless, they got the impression that she and I were perfect for each other.

Particularly because, due to reasons I'd rather not get into, they knew I was into spiders that way. Fortunately, they didn't admit me to a mental hospital, but I learned to start locking my door because of that less than stellar experience.

As for Centorea, both of my parents loved how polite and reverent she was. There wasn't any question the fierce loyalty and affection that she had for me, and telling them the story of how she and I met, after my parents justifiably berated me for being an idiot, they thought that she and I were the perfect, healthiest, cutest couple. Mom was a tad overprotective of me, but she was convinced that Centorea would never do anything to hurt me. If nothing else, she knew that Centorea would beat me on purpose or steal all my money.

The only issue when it came to the centaur was her lower body. For horse, her bottom half was incredibly attractive, but the fact that Centorea was a centaur, a sentient being that fell in love with a human male who just so happened to be their son, my parents were a little flustered by it. As beautiful as she was, my mom describing her physical appearance as "pure," she smelled like hay and didn't maneuver well when there were so many people in the room. It was because of Centorea's large size that they realized how big the house had to renovated to accommodate her, but I think the biggest thing that put them off was the question in the back of their minds about how things might have worked in the bedroom. Talking to her about mine and Centorea's romance made my mom a bit nervous, probably for that very reason. As for Dad, I caught him looking at her a few times with a bemused look on his face.

"Don't get me wrong," my dad said to me as he watched the girls get along, "I understand how you can love those amazing knockers-"

"I will break you," I interjected.

"-But how exactly does the rest work…?"

I crossed my arms and looked side long at him. I intentionally filled the void with silence to make him uncomfortable as I looked at him with the most emotionless deadpan I could possibly manage.

"I don't want to talk about that," I decided.

"That's fair, that's fair," he agreed, "And what about the young ones? You're not…?"

"Oh, definitely not," I answered honestly, "They're adorable and I love them dearly, but Suu doesn't really have the mental capacity just yet to understand romance on an intellectual or emotional level, at least I don't think she does, and Papi is… Even though she's an adult, mentally and physically, if I ended up dating her, it wouldn't be because of her maturity. Regardless of what other people would think, there is no way I could justify dating her and make other people nor myself think that pedophilia didn't have something to do with it." My dad nodded sagely, then after taking a second to let that sink in, he asked one final question.

"And the spider is gorgeous, but-"

"I especially don't want to talk about that." That one was followed by a nervous laugh.

Don't get me wrong, running and Irish marathon with Rachnera was probably the best I was ever going to have, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little weird. The way her claws dug into my back wasn't like a human girl's nails. Her fingers were sharp like daggers but made of a soft chitin, so it made the pain worse, the pleasure greater, and essentially removed all risk of injury if she was being careful. That wasn't that peculiar, but her legs and carapace would throw anyone for a loop. If I was on top, they would wrap around me in the creepiest, most gut wrenchingly uncomfortable way, and even though I loved every minute of it, it would naturally make a normal person with normal interest want to see a priest so they could bathe in holy water. Plus, while it may not seem like it with how her body was shaped, the number of positions we could contort ourselves into boggled the mind.

The secret was using a web instead of a bed, but Dad didn't need to know that.

"Just so you know, this isn't everyone," I proclaimed, grabbing everyone's attention, "There's one more girl in one of the rooms in the back, but she's… indisposed at the moment."

My mom's eyes lit up excitedly.

"Another one?!" she asked, and at the same time, Dad asked the same but slightly altered question.

"You have another one?!" he gasped. I didn't know if anyone else caught it, but the specific way he worded his question made it so that he was asking if I had another girlfriend, not another homestay.

"Yeah, Miia," I explained, getting a few nervous looks from the liminals in the room, "But you'll meet her tomorrow. I promise. She's kind of going through some stuff right now, and can't leave her room. You guys are cool with that, right?" Mom and Dad both gave me a look. Most parents wouldn't respect such a vague statement, but mine…

"Of course," Mom relented, Dad nodding in agreement, "Whatever she needs."

Mine were amazing. If, for whatever reason, I asked for their patience and understanding, they would always give it to me, no questions asked. I guess you could say I hit the genetic lottery with them.

"Tell us a little about her, though," Mom said, shifting Papi in her lap so she could turn to look at me. I smiled warmly, fondly remembering her.

"She's a woman after your own heart, Mom," I started, "Fashionable, feminine, a great mother to Suu and Papi if you're the example I have to judge her by. She's kind and sweet, and amazingly beautiful. She was the first girl to actually move in with me, if you wanted to know." Centorea and Rachnera both smiled happily at the way I was describing her.

"Is she really that great?" Dad asked, so I turned to him.

"Let me answer the question you're really asking Dad," I said sternly, a proud smirk on my face, "Yes. Not only is Miia 'another one,' as you put it, but she's my fiance, and I plan on marrying her."

My parents looked at Rachnera and Centorea. They were trying to find some jealousy or anger or something, but both of them just looked at me with those same loving smiles before turning to them and shrugging like they really didn't care one way or the other that I was seeing three woman, one of whom I was going to marry and that one wasn't either of them. Rachnera returned to her coffee, and Centorea went to grab some more hors-devours from the kitchen for everyone.

I don't know if my parents expected their lives to take such a crazy turn when they came back from their expedition in Antarctica, but they seemed to take it well. Anyone else would have snapped from this level of nonsense by this point. Seeing how welcoming Mom and Dad were of everyone, probably went to show how easily I was able to handle the girls and integrate them in human society if they were the ones who raised me. No matter what happened, they just took it in stride. They knew when to fight and when to hold back, and since these girls had been staying with me for almost a full year now, they were comfortable in my house and four of us were dating, they didn't bother trying to fight this. As far as they were concerned, as put out they were by their moving in and the sudden renovations they didn't approve of, the girls were family. Although, the ridiculousness of the situation wasn't lost on them.

My dad was a big fan of the facepalm, and at this point, the red mark on his forehead could probably stop traffic in a busy intersection.


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

When I don't train for one day, I know it. When I don't train for two days, the girls know it. That should be the worst of it, but with the weather as bad as it had been the past week, covering the roads in ice and snow that would have torn my kneecaps out if I slipped, I hadn't trained for a long time, and when I don't train for even three days, everyone knows it. It was a lesson I had learned from Jascha Heifetz. He wasn't even a martial artist, instead being a Russian-American violinist, but he was right. Forget three days; after a week, I wasn't even able to run my usual 5k without wanting to collapse.

About halfway through my usual path through the backstreets, I could feel my lungs burning like I was drowning in fire and did what I could to get to a cafe I knew of nearby fell face first onto one of their couches. I was panting and sweating like a proud whore in a confessional chamber, staining my track suit. I probably made a funny sight. Or creepy. Most likely creepy since the girl I landed next to didn't even look up from her computer before she moved to the table on the other side of the room. Quite frankly, I didn't really care one way or the other because I was slowly, slowly dying. Maybe if I went jogging with Centorea, or anyone else for that matter, I might not have looked like a freak at the moment.

"Casa-chan?" I heard a light hearted voice say.

I wasn't paying too much attention to her. I was lucky I could even hear her given that I was starting to pass out due to the fatigue and lack of oxygen.

"Casa-chan! Wake up!" it whined again, starting to sound like a small child.

I could hear her more clearly at this point given how incessantly she was trying to get my attention, so I decided to ignore her.

"Casa-chan!" she screamed.

"What?!" I yelled and looked up, most of my breath coming back enough for me to challenge her. She was an ogre, standing over ten feet tall and with a single black horn protruding from her head, wearing a yellow sundress that gave quite a nice contrast to her deeply tanned skin and bleached hair. She was looking at me with an annoyed expression, puffing her cheeks out and her arms crossed.

"Ugh, you're so mean, Casa-chan!" she grumbled. I sighed heavily and sat back up, leaning back lazily into the couch.

"Good to see you too, Tionishia," I greeted.

"I told you to call me Tio!" she cried, acting like a small child who wasn't getting their way and making me grin evilly.

"Stop calling me Casanova," I shot her.

Another familiar face, a zombie named Zombina with green and gold mismatched eyes, shaggy red hair, and stitches all over her exposed skin came up to us with an evil grin surpassing my own. Every time I see her, I tense up. The clearly infected stitches and implied gore that was implied from her presence didn't bug me at all. It was really the fact that underneath her military jeans and red bomber jacket was a dozen fully loaded firearms, semi automatic or otherwise, as well as hundreds of rounds of ammo. OK, to be fair, guns weren't the issue either. In fact, the more guns around me, the safer I feel. It was the fact she was very willing to use them. On anyone. Me in particular.

According to her, though, she doesn't hate me. I think she just finds shooting at my head whenever I'm nearby funny.

"Stop trying to sleep with every liminal nearby and maybe we won't Lady's Man," she teased.

"Aw c'mon! I don't jump at every liminal nearby," I started. Another friendly face, a mono-eye named Mono wearing a grey, wool poncho and a sun hat that didn't match to hide her one, single eye sidled into the seat next to me shyly.

"Please don't," she whispered.

"After all…" I continued, then on my other side a girl I didn't recognize with black hair and unnaturally blue eyes wrapped herself around my arm.

"You'd better stop, Sexy," she told me. I really had no idea who she was. However, after giving it a second of thought and seeing how she treated me way too friendly for someone I didn't know, as well as who she was associating with, I knew she was Doppel. She was a doppelganger who regularly associated with these other three because they all worked for the ICEP, and given her species, she had a supernatural ability to shapeshift.

Mono the mono-eye, Zombina the zombie, and Doppel the doppelganger… I didn't make those up. They're really that stereotypical and unoriginal.

"Alright, sure. Fine. I'll stop," I relented, still smiling and not breaking eye contact with Zombina.

"No, go on. Don't start something you won't finish," zombie girl challenged. Her stitches curled upwards as she gave me the dirtiest of looks, challenging me and threatening me in the same expression.

"Well, given that I'm an obnoxious nunce, how can I refuse?" I said coyly, slipping my way out of Mono's and Doppel's arms with my cheeky grin only getting wider, "As I was saying, I think it's obvious that I don't make a move on every liminal that comes my way. Did you forget I have standards now? I haven't made a move on you, after all."

I don't react well to being shot at. Normally, if a liminal attacks a human, it would create an international incident considering that's one of the biggest rules the Interspecies Exchange Bill still has in place even three years after its founding, but there are some exceptions. For example, I could sleep with any liminal I wanted since I was a "test case" for romantic relationships. At the same time, that gave me the priority to fight a liminal girl if I ever needed to, which at the same time, it made the reverse true and allowed myself to be assaulted by liminals with only a minor assault charge.

As for the group of girls I mistakenly ran into that morning, they were the monster law enforcement for the ICEP. Each and everyone of these girls, while still being monsters, had gotten permission from various international governments to carry weapons and attack people in the name of the law if they ever deemed it necessary. Adding my status and theirs together… I'd like to think I take getting shot at pretty well. Maybe not spectacularly, but hey. I wasn't the crazy zombie who started shooting up a coffee house because I was told I was undesirable.

If nothing else, I knew running away was always a valid self defense option. Granted, self defense implied that you had some chance of surviving an encounter that puts you endanger, but the only reason I was still alive when I sprinted down the nearby alley was because Zombina didn't really want to kill me. If she wanted to put a bullet in my back, she really could have. She doesn't miss.

"Ha! You've gotten better!" I heard a cocky laughter. Looking on the wall I was running next to, I saw Zombina running alongside me with a catlike balance, her toothy grin flashing in my face. I slid to a stop, and she did the same, pivoting to a sitting position and crossing her legs as she propped her gun on her shoulder.

"At what?! The Matrix?!" I yelled.

"What? It was funny?!" she defended, snickering.

"Shooting up a cafe is fun to you?!" I screamed, throwing my hands out.

"Yes!"

I blinked at her. She said that so confidently, grinning like a pure angel that didn't see anything wrong with that action.

"OK, frankly, I can see it," I admitted, "But you're an edgelord."

"What? And you're not?" she shot back. I winked at her and threw out a few finger guns before the other three girls caught up with us.

"Zombina-chan, what is wrong with you!" Tio panicked.

"Zombina, there are cops everywhere!" Mono followed, kneeling over and out of breath.

"I thought it was funny," Doppel countered, appearing next to her teammate on the wall in her original form, "And besides, they probably needed a break anyway and could get some danishes there. So what?"

I took a second to appreciate her completely black skin, black eyes, and that long white hair of hers that twisted around her body like smoke before pulling away from her petite, naked form to answer.

"Yeah, who cares about setting good examples as government agents or wasting precious legal resources that could be focused elsewhere? Or, I don't know, maybe the political message this is going to send with all the shootings happening around the US right now or how Smith is going to react to this?" I mentioned passively.

Everyone completely shut up and stared at me in dumbfounded awe.

"Maybe I didn't think this through," Zombina agreed.

"No kidding!" I praised, "Funny? Yes. Smart? Well, I've never thought you were Einstein."

"Why do you hate me?" she whimpered, a defeated smile still crossing her lips.

"Hmm," I mumbled and looked over my shoulder where I could see police lights and hear sirens off in the distance, "Wow, you know what? I can't really tell. What were you guys doing at that cafe anyway?"

"We had some time before work," Doppel told me.

"I never got my danish," Tio whined. I reached up on my toes and patted her head like a loving big brother.

"I'll get you a danish this weekend," I said, then got overly excited, "Are we still on for clothes shopping Friday?"

"Yes! Of course, Casa-chan!" she cheered then pulled me into a hug that should have snapped my neck. It hurt, but I didn't care. Her dress was low cut and her hug buried my face into the bare skin of her J-cups, so I was in way too much pleasure to really care until Zombina pulled me away.

"Tio, stop suffocating him!" she commanded.

OK, that? That ticked me off. Under normal circumstances, I would have just yelled at the person, but this time, just because I knew the much stronger and durable liminal could take it, I looped my arm under hers and flipped her over my shoulder, slamming her into the ground.

"Ah, what the heck, man?! What was that for?!" she spat.

"Uh, Bina?" Tio said with a blank expression, pointing at the ground. Different limbs and body parts of hers were scattered around the ground.

"How- how did- WHAT?!" she demanded. Doppel bent down from her perch and laughed at us.

"Dang, Sexy, I didn't know you were so strong! Normally, it takes hits a lot harder than that to cut her up like that," she applauded me. Mono was catching my eye- pun very much intended -every few seconds while she busied herself with picking up and reattaching her teammate's body parts. I couldn't pay too much attention to her, though, since Tio picked me up and began examining me.

"I was actually the last person to do it," she said curiously, "I know you work out, but I'm pretty sure I could still out lift you."

"Um, I guess?" I sputtered, "I'm pretty sure you can too, but have you guys never practiced judo before? Those throws can seriously hurt at higher levels. I've even seen people get knocked out in seconds on street fight videos after they get thrown."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, we know," Doppel continued, Mono nodding along, "Throws and takedowns are basic training for Monster's New Law all across the globe, but believe me, no human we know throws that hard. Maybe professional's do, but I don't think anyone outside of the UFC can do it."

"Aren't you supposed to go pro next year or something?" Zombina asked.

"Yeah, I was supposed to, but I think I might take another year given that I've been slacking off due to… obvious reasons," I said, not wanting to admit that the girls were hurting my training regimine.

Shrugging her shoulders when everything was back where it needed to be, Zombina flashed me another crooked grin, but then her eyes twisted in surprise. Looking closely, I saw her pupils narrow like a cat stalking its prey. The way her body tensed up like she was about to start a fight was so palpable it put me on edge and I had to take a step away from her before I ended up doing the same, only to bump into Mono standing behind me. When I turned to apologize, I saw that her hat was off and her one eye focused down the scope of a rifle she pulled out of nowhere.

What was going on? I looked up to Tio and Doppel for confirmation, but they looked just as bad as the other two and surrounded me, facing outwards like they were protecting precious cargo. Tio got into a fighting stance, Zombina pulled out a second submachine gun and pointed them down the alley, and Doppel stood behind me, probably masking me in her hair as a smoke screen. If it was only one of them, I could understand that. They were all paranoid since each of them were law enforcement and had to keep their eyes out for any potential threat at all times, making them undoubtedly paranoid at times, but since each of them were teaming up like there was a threat in the immediate area… I wasn't safe. I knew these girls well enough to know that I was in serious danger at the moment. If they were worried about the police finding them, they wouldn't have gotten ready for a battle, and if it were a human, a species that had a very unique scent to liminals so they would know it was them, they wouldn't use their weapons for such a weak opponent. There was a dangerous liminal nearby.

"Guys? What's going on?" I whispered, crouching low with my hands up, ready to dodge, block, or run away should any of those options become necessary.

"Doppel," Zombina ordered.

"On it," she affirmed, and before I knew it, was airborne.

Looking up, I saw that Doppel had shifted into a giant eagle and dug her talons around my arms to lift me in the air, but looking down, I could see a swarm of ravens circling around the other girls while they tried to shoot and bat them away. Next thing I knew, Doppel twisted and broke my line of sight from them. I found myself airborne and falling fast to the ground, so at first I thought I was hit by something, but right before I hit the ground, a large panther appeared beneath me and began sprinting in the direction of my house. It was obvious that Doppel caught me since liminals don't appear this animalistic and regular panthers aren't this large, so I didn't question it.

She jumped over cars and fences and ran fast enough to qualify for the Daytona 500, so I trouble holding on. At that speed, I couldn't even speak so I couldn't ask her what was after us. The more I thought about it, though, the more I ended up debating whether whatever was fighting the other MON Squad members was after them because they were pawns of human politics, or if it was after me because I was human. While the former seems more likely, it would take either a really powerful terrorist group or a really stupid girl to pick a fight with Monsters New Law. Fighting was their job. The only liminals I could see consciously going up against them, confident enough that they could win would have to be a serious group of dangerous liminal radicals, and while those groups did exist, they weren't exactly a common occurrence. While a monster going after me individually didn't seem likely either, I just couldn't see one or even a group going after the others instead.

I decided that I was their target. Whether it was one confident monster or a terrorist group bent on kidnapping, it made more sense in my mind for them to come after me instead of MON. Thing is, given my usual behavior, you'd think that I would have jumped off of Doppel's back and ran in the opposite direction so I'd become more of a priority and make sure the other girls didn't get hurt, but that wasn't the case for this scenario. I wasn't an idiot. Right now, even if they were the ones fighting and I was just a burden, I knew that the MON Squad were better prepared for this than I was. If I got off Doppel's back or tried to fight myself, I would just get in the way and make things worse.

I didn't notice when spears made of bone hit the ground all around us, and neither did Doppel. Before I could even question what had happened, panther Doppel lost her footing and was knocked over, sending me flying several feet forward, and believe me, judo throws hurt. I know that from experience. Fortunately, that same experience meant that I knew how to fall, and I managed to find some kind of leverage midair to roll and lessen the impact, landing on my knees.

I heard laughter and looked up. Sitting on one of the street lights in my development was a young girl, maybe about thirteen years old, sporting a gothic lolita dress with enough emo makeup to rival Blood on the Dance Floor. She didn't say anything when I got up. She clearly didn't want to talk. With that same ojou-sama laugh echoing across the winter air, she reared her hand back, making another bone lance appear in her palms and threw it at me as fast as she could which I was lucky enough to get out of the way. Then, she fired off another, and another, and another. I managed to stay on my feet long enough to get out of the way each time, but then she had had enough of this ranged combat. I kept backing up. If she wasn't hitting me at that first distance, creating more was just going to make her aim worse, so she dashed forward. Way too fast for me to react, she appeared in front of me with a smile crazy enough to rival Jeffrey Dahmer.

"Hello!" she mewled in a scratchy voice.

Suddenly, I was knocked off my feet several feet away, but it wasn't like I got hit by something. I had gotten hit enough to know when someone meant me harm. This was more like I was pushed out of the way, and when I was able to process what hit me, I saw Doppel, in a flash of white smoke circling around the girl and hitting her at all angles while black wings sprouted from the goth's back to try to compensate her blind spots. Then, Doppel's face appeared in the smoke, glaring at me.

"Go! Get to your girls! They'll protect you!"

"Like hell," I whispered to myself, then got up and sprinted towards the park.

There was an old sewage pipe there that I could hide out in and keep my back covered with, so hopefully I could use that to my advantage when whoever was after me found me and give myself a fighting chance. I wasn't about to get the others involved in this. Letting the MON Squad fight for me was one thing, but there was no threat too dangerous that would make me let the girls fight on my behalf.

Apparently, a third gothic liminal had the same idea. The time I reached the pipe in question, there was another girl standing in front of my intended safehouse poised and ready to go. Her hair was long and white, same color as Doppel's but much thicker. Her skin was as pale as a corpse's, and her eyes looked tired as if she hadn't slept in over a week, but then I saw she was wearing dark armor over every inch of her body, a purple cloak wrapped around her neck and covering her mouth. She was holding a stylized scythe behind her back that looked like it was built more for decoration than combat or gardening. The weird thing was that her hand was up to her face like she was posing for Shonen Jump.

"There are great powers far beyond the understanding of your mortal coil," she said in a low voice, "And they desire tribute. By the strings of fate, they have demanded you as a sacrifice, and thus, your life is forfeit."

She turned to me, a dangerous look in her eyes. It was clear to me that she was with whoever was chasing me, and I was previously ready to fight anyone that came my way, but now? I couldn't help dropping my guard. She was… Odd. I knew hitmen aren't exactly the most socially adept individuals, but this girl screamed awkward to me. I was so distracted by her attitude, I couldn't pick up a single dangerous thing about her, and maybe I was just caught so off guard by this dork that I almost lost the will to fight entirely.

Almost.

"You're… interesting," I claimed, "Quite the chuuni, aint'cha?" I don't think she was expecting that because her eyes contorted in embarrassment, and if that cloak wasn't in the way, I would have thought she was blushing.

"I am not," she mumbled, "I am death incarnate! A dullahan of the Irish Wastes!"

"The Irish Wastes," I repeated, an amused smirk crossing my lips, "The wastelands of Ireland. A land in Ireland with a lack of life and vegetation. The Irish wastelands. Do I understand you correctly?"

The dullahan curled in on herself, her knees shaking. She began sniffling and looked like she was about to cry, and for a second, I started to feel bad for picking on her, but then I kicked that thought out of my mind. Off the top of my head, I remembered dullahans were death gods. They essentially functioned as the Celtic equivalent of the Japanese shinigami, but I couldn't remember anything about their physiology, and that put me at a pretty significant disadvantage. If I couldn't remember what made them unique, I couldn't figure out her weaknesses or racial abilities.

"Stop being mean!" she mewled.

"If I understand you correctly, you're trying to kill me," I growled before returning to my stance, "Kindness went out the window a long time ago."

The dullahan finally remembered what we were doing and returned to her previously demure facade. Her dead eyes honed in on me. Twirling her scythe behind her back once again, she narrowed her eyes and held her hand out to me, cinching her fingers in the traditional kung fu "bring it on" gesture, only adding to her chuuni persona.

I didn't even hesitate. I charged her and went straight for her weapon arm so I could disarm her, knowing full well that was how she was going to come at me. I saw her swing and sidestepped inside her guard. I wasn't expecting her ability to control the distance.

By rotating her blade and switching her grip, she got me right across my shoulder, slicing open my tracksuit and sending blood trailing down, and I hate to say it, but I panicked. I did the one thing you're never supposed to do during a fight and went blind. The minute I lost sight of myself and tried to back away, she was in complete control and ran back at me, using her longer reach to come at me, and I was lucky to dodge her first two strikes. I knew they were trying to kill me. The minute this fight started, I knew the dullahan would be going for my throat. Only now did I realize what that meant.

My instincts took over, true to my training, and my mind went blank to let my body act on its own, activating some sort of survival drive that had been ingrained in me since I was a novice. Without thinking, I moved forward again. I sidestepped another slash and was behind the blade of her weapon, so I grabbed the shaft of her scythe and spun, switching my grip so I could land a side kick directly into her face.

Her head coming off was a bigger surprise than the flesh wound in my arm. I wasn't prepared for this. I reacted in time for her body coming at me on its own and grabbed her arm to throw her around me, but I needed to run. I was handling this well, but I was out of my league.

I turned on my heel and sprinted back to the main road. I wasn't going to head back to my house and endanger the girls, and I figured that the MON Squad were still fighting so I wasn't going to head back to where they were. All I did was run until I realized that I should go to the police. No matter who was attacking me, human or monster, they'd protect me. Eventually, they'd contact the ICEP and Smith would believe what happened given her team's testimony.

Unfortunately, I wasn't as fast as the dullahan. In the time it took me to get back to the road, she had put her head back on her shoulders and cut me off. I was in luck. She tried staring me down before attacking me, so she didn't see me going for her legs and I got her off her feet. She face planted into the concrete, her head staying on, and I went for her legs. She turned over and slashed me across my chest. It was another flesh wound, but I wasn't about to worry myself with it since she was getting back up and twirling her scythe at short range again. Switching to long range, she spun and tried to get at my neck. I blocked it. The shaft hit my arm with a thick crack, not breaking any bones, but the base of the blade cut into my fist.

She switched to short range again, trying to get at me at close range. However, I had already closed the distance and grabbed the hand that held most of the control on her weapon. My face was inches from hers. I saw the fear in her eyes before I struck.

"Back off!" I yelled, and for a split second, even in the middle of a fight, I thought I heard thunder strike, the doors of the houses next to me rattling on their hinges.

My fist connected with her stomach and I sent her flying backwards off her feet. She flew down the street parallel to the ground. She stopped ten feet away but only when her back hit a streetlamp, denting the thing ninety degrees. It clearly hurt her. She gripped her stomach and I could see blood coming from the stump where her head met her neck. She was coughing.

"So, this is what happens…" she muttered to herself, but before she could finish that, I was already on her, punching her head off once again.

I had thought that blinding her would give me some advantage, but it seemed like the opposite was true, like her body could sense the living. She pulled her scythe into short range again. She dug it under my arm and around my back before twisting it and ripping every tendon in my right shoulder apart. I never screamed so loud in my life. As sharp as the pain was, it wasn't as bad as I might have thought. The shock from the wound was much worse. My scream was laced with fear just as much as it came from agony, and I dropped to my knees.

"What's going on?" someone said. I looked over and saw a mammalian liminal with a dog puppet step out of her house watching us.

"That smell… Oh, my Lord. That smell!" I heard another one say, and saw a purple serpent sniffing the air a few yards away.

"Is this because of you?" said a raptor harpy that ran up and perched on a fence next to us.

"What do you think you're doing?!" this one was a mosquito girl that looked like she hadn't bathed in a month.

"What in the world?" that one was a frog examining and even licking the bent lamp post.

The dullahan started to look overwhelmed and tried to put on her chuuni persona to scare them all off, but more and more demihumans were coming to check out the scene. I didn't see my girls, at least not yet. I didn't see a single human either, so whatever was happening sent only the monsters into a frenzy. Should I run away? I didn't know how to react.

"Dude! We need to go!" a man's voice yelled in my ear over the chaos, his arms wrapping around me.

I couldn't quite see his face over everything. I thought I recognized his voice, but it started coming like a low echo. I tried blinking away the daze from my eyes, but it didn't help. I looked at my body. There was just… so much blood…

So much… I'm sorry, Miia.


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"Wow~ the bath is so nice and warm today, Darling!" Miia moaned when slipped into the tub, coiling her tail around herself.

"You think so?" I asked, taking off my clothes so I could join her, "Or are you just freezing?"

"You spent the night with Rachnera, so of course I'm freezing!" she whined, shooting off a pout, "It was so lonely last night without you snuggling me. I was shaking the whole time."

Without hesitation, I sunk into the bath myself and rolled into her, wrapping my arms around her neck and nuzzling against her boobs so tightly I could hear her heart rate increase, and was that moaning? I didn't need to look up to see her smile. I could feel it in the way she pulled me closer by my head, almost suffocating me but I was kind of into that, and looping her tail around my waist. She hugged me so tightly that I almost fell asleep on her. The warmth of her body mixed with the blanket of the bath water around us was so comforting that the only reason I didn't was because I was, in fact, suffocating.

I tapped Miia's tail a few times. I think she might have thought I was trying to make a move or something because she didn't let go right away. Actually, she giggled and reached the tip of her tail around to my front until she saw my face turning blue and swam away from me, covering her face embarrassedly with a bright blush on her cheeks. While I was gasping for air, I gave her a stupid grin which she returned when she could see I was OK.

"You warm now?" I asked through a series of coughs.

"Maybe, but I don't think I'm warm enough just yet," she admitted, narrowing her eyes lecherously.

"Then… What are you waiting for?" I gave her a stupid look, letting her know that she was wasting time and she gave me a low, husky chuckle.

Without even hesitating she slid back over and pushed me against the side of the tub, crawling into my lap as her arms found their way around my neck, her fingers lacing in my hair. As her tail loop around my waist once more, she was careful not to strangle me again. Slowly, and as gentle as if whispering to a kitten from a distance, she kissed me, her soft pink lips connecting with mine in a loving embrace. We stayed that way for several minutes. Our lips pressed against one another, never fighting but passionately dancing with one another as our hands tenderly rolled around each other's bodies. Her soft touch, the way her fingers trailed along my neck and lightly pulled at my hair made me move closer to her. I pulled her in, not as a sexy move, but in a desperate effort to be closer to her.

After a few minutes, we pulled away. We were both gasping for air as a trail of our fight kept our tongues in contact for a few seconds until she had moved far enough away for the line to snap, making her giggle and wipe her chin in slight bemusement before sliding away from me. While I threw my arms over the back of the tub, watching her with a small amount of humor, she dunk herself under the water. She stayed down there for almost a full minute. Then, out of nowhere, she jumped out of the water, roaring as if trying to scare me, landing on my lap with her arms locked on my knees and way too close to me without me pecking her lips again. She smiled and separated from me again, wiping her soaked hair out of her face.

"We should start washing, shouldn't we?" she asked.

"You and I are the only people I've ever heard of that do that before…" I insinuated, then got a tail slapping across my face. She gave me a smirk, then grabbed her lamia-scale body wash while turning at just the right angle to give me a decent shot of side boob, glancing over her shoulder to see me looking.

"Pervert," she said.

"I love you too," I whispered in her ear as I gave her yet another kiss on her neck, "Now, hand me the shampoo. We have to get ready for our date today. I'm thinking we should go to the zoo today? That way Papi would have something to do, Rachnera and Centorea could have that one-on-one time they wanted, and Suu can be… Suu."

"Only if you wake up, Darling," Miia said, her back turned to me. I blinked at her.

"What do you mean? I'm awake," I tried to convince her.

"Are you sure?" she reiterated, but this time it wasn't her voice.

"Miia…?" I was starting to get concerned, so I put my hand on her shoulder and turned her, only to jump back out of the tub, screaming in fear.

That girl wasn't Miia. As she climbed out of the tub, I saw that her skin had changed from Miia's scarlet colored scales to a dull, corpse-like grey, her waist length hair several shades lighter and her eyes a bold black. I had to admit, her boobs were amazing, her hips wide and with no muscle, but her head falling off of her shoulders and rolling next to me was a huge turn off. Or a turn on- I wasn't that sure, to be honest. Both? Probably both. The girl's body sassily put a hand on her hip with her other propping an ornate scythe on her shoulder, while her head gave me a look as dead as her skin. As her eyes met mine, I trembled in anticipation as one single phrase escaped her lips.

"They want you dead, Ghirahim."

(...)

"Chuuni scrub!" I yelled, throwing myself forward in the bed I was lying in, waking up in a panic. I was tensed and ready to fight. Whenever someone wakes up from a nightmare, it takes them awhile to calm down, realizing that it was just a dream, and this was taking me quite awhile. My body was trying to catch up to mind. It took it a moment before I calmed down, but then it remembered how sore I was and reminded me with a series of shooting pains all over. I managed to whimper after that.

"You're up! Hi!" said a feminine voice next to me.

I saw her face first. She had elfish features and bright blue eyes, a pair of beauty marks under both of them that were slightly skewed from being perfectly symmetrical. Her hair was blonde but mixed with red so it looked like fire, and it fell across her shoulders loosely but she also had two buns on the top of her head like rat ears. In other words, my first thought of her was that she was cute. My nightmare-combative morning wood was made even worse when I realized she was sitting in a chair next to me and had been resting her head on my lap all night. It was either that, or she had been watching me sleep. Either way, it was pretty kinky.

Given what I remembered happened the day before, I figured I really had problems if I was still ready for some beard splitting.

Next thing I saw were the two fox tails flicking behind her excitedly, the same fiery blonde as her hair with a brunette tip at the end. She wasn't a very common species, but I recognized it easily enough. She was an inari. Some people might mistake her for a nekomata or a kitsune, and normally, I would have done the same since her species looked almost exactly like the others, but I knew this girl specifically. She was a friend of mine actually. More accurately, she was my friend's homestay.

"Hey, Sayoko," I croaked, groggy from just waking up and being in immense amounts of pain. I had so many questions, but couldn't form any words properly. English was a thing, right? I spoke it?

"You're lucky we found you," she stated, her eyes showing how worried she was as she checked the bandages around my torso, "What happened to you?! When we found you, you were bleeding out and surrounded by a dozen liminals."

"Who did you fight?" I heard another voice on the other side of the room. I looked over and saw a freakishly tall man a few years older than I was, short black hair and a deep tone to his arms sitting in a recliner, glaring at me through bold rimmed glasses.

"Hey, Thomas," I greeted him with an embarrassed grin, "I think I won, if you're worried about that."

"I'm not. You're an idiot," he told me simply, "Seriously, what happened? I've never seen you look so bad."

I met Thomas when I was working at a grocery store in high school for a few months when I took a stint away from martial arts training to earn some extra money. We both worked in the dairy department which was always overstocked and overstaffed. Considering this didn't give us a lot to do during the day, most of our shifts was spent hanging out in the cooler while we played games on our phones and hung out with whoever else was working that day. Thomas and I immediately hit it off considering we were both huge misanthropes and shared an interest in liminals. The difference between me and him was that, even if I was completely comfortable talking to him about my most depraved fantasies just because of the type of guy he was, he didn't have the same obsession with the internet that I did so he actually passed the background check when he applied to the ICEP. That's how he met Sayoko.

For that reason, he quit his job to focus on living with Sayoko full time like some kind of house husband, and I left the store around the same time when I learned that I had a shot to become a professional UFC fighter. We had become such good friends in such a short amount of time, however, that we ended up hanging out outside of work, too.

Another difference between me and him was that he didn't tolerate bullcrap whereas I would take advantage of it. Whenever I told him something that he knew wasn't true, or that I was hiding the truth from, he wouldn't hesitate to call me out on it and would do so in the rudest way possible.

"Fine, straight answers then," I gave in, rubbing the tired out of my eyes.

"Are the girls OK?" he asked, referring to my household.

"They weren't with me at the time," I said, "In fact, what's weird was that the MON Squad was with me at the time I got attacked, so I can't really figure out why-"

"You just got caught in the middle it sounds like," he said, turning to face his TV screen where he was playing a game called Warframe, "Why else would someone try to fight you if you're with government agents?"

"Yeah, I know I'm not that special," I grumbled, giving him a dead look. I decided that it might not be a good idea to tell him that I had the same theory earlier before the dullahan told me that she was looking for me specifically.

"You need to be more careful, dude," he snapped, "How do you think your girls would react to hearing you died just because you did something stupid and got involved in something that didn't concern you? Isn't Miia still in her coma? What do you think she would do if she woke up to find out this happened?"

I admit, that kind of hurt. I ended up jumping out of the bed, scaring Sayoko away from me to avoid getting knocked over and turning to him, yelling. He didn't even bothering standing. He raised his eyebrow at me as if expecting me to act this way but assuming I wasn't going to do anything.

"Shut up!" I yelled at him, "You have no idea what happened! That dullahan- crap…" I muttered the last bit as I dropped to my knees, unaware how badly I was hurt until my body completely gave out on me, threatening to knock me out. How much blood had I really lost? Thomas stepped over to me and helped me to my feet, Sayoko helping me on my other side, and set me down on the bed, waiting until I could look at him without my eyes glazing over before lighting up a cigarette and finally saying something.

"I'm just trying to make sure you're OK, dude," he said calmly.

"I know… Sorry, I lost control," I apologized.

"It's OK. You were pretty badly hurt. I think anyone else would react the same way in this situation."

"The last thing I remember is a bunch of monster girls surrounding me, and trying to keep the dullahan away from me," I grumbled, trying to stretch out my shoulders, "What happened after that?"

"I'll tell you," Sayoko said, Thomas nodding in appreciation and grabbing an energy drink out of the refrigerator by his bed, "Master and I were going over to your house so he could introduce you to Gloria sometime later this week, but then we heard some kind of commotion down the street by the park, OK? OK?"

I nodded to her, giving her the signal to continue.

"So, then Gloria decided to run over and see what was going on and then we found all of those girls around you but we knew who you were so we pulled you away and then the dullahan was carried off by ravens and then you passed out and Gloria was mad and we brought you here and stitched you up and Gloria stole your cell phone and-"

"Sayoko please calm down," I said nicely. I loved the girl but she was way too energetic when she told a story like this one. I couldn't keep up in the state I was in. Unfortunately, I could almost never keep up with her considering all she ever talked about were stories.

"Oh, sorry," she giggled and knelt down next to me again.

"So, who's Gloria?" I asked, "New homestay?"

"Yep," Thomas said over his shoulder, "I think you'd like her."

"I'm going to have to meet her eventually," I said, standing up and testing out my balance on my feet, "Sounds like I have her to thank for getting me out of there, so at some point I'll need to make it up to her somehow."

"You can thank me by telling me exactly who and what you are," said a low, female voice in the corner. I didn't see her before, but hiding in the shadows, there was a canine liminal who just decided to make her presence known. Her skin was dark obsidian like molten rock. Her hair was a much lighter shade of black, almost grey, and was as wild as the angry look behind her blood red eyes, those irises matching the color of her claws. Her fangs and claws were both bared as if ready to jump at my throat. Maybe it was because of her anger that I could feel that deadly heat coming off of her so blazing so hard that it looked like it would burn off her white tee shirt and daisy dukes.

I was way too tired to even get into a moderate fighting stance. Apparently, Thomas thought I was in dangerous just as much as I was and paused his game to step in between us.

"Easy guys, calm down," he said simply. Obediently, the liminal I assumed was Gloria crossed her arms and rested her chin against Thomas's shoulder, never taking her eyes off of me. We watched each other carefully, waiting for the other to make a move. Eventually, I decided that since I was in no condition to fight anyone, much less someone who was much stronger than I was, all I could really do was give her an honest answer.

"My name is Kayo Ghirahim," I said, "I'm your host's friend, and I don't really know how else to answer that second question of yours if you can forgive it." She growled and tightly wrapped her arms around Thomas's waist.

"I can't," she hissed, "I know you're his friend. I was asking what species you are."

I blinked at her, entirely unsure how to answer that question. Even Thomas wasn't sure what was going on, looking over his shoulder with the same raised eyebrow from earlier. I knew male liminals existed. The only issue with that idea was that there wasn't a single liminal alive, especially not male ones, that looked like a normal human like I did, or like I thought I did. Where was she going with this?

"I'm… human?" I said unsurely, having no idea how else to answer. Gloria's breath almost stopped, and I could feel the tension in the air become even thicker than before as she gently pushed Thomas out of the way.

"Boss, please stay aside, OK?" she asked politely. He switched his look between the two of us, and for a second, I thought he was going to defy her since he knew that if she hurt me, she would cause an international incident.

"Play nice," he said importantly and went back to his game.

"I hate you," I told him.

"You would," he said behind a laugh.

I tensed up even more as Gloria stepped over to me, her arms crossed and circling me like I was her prey. I could feel her eyes looking me up and down. She circled around me once, then moved around me a second time while trailing the tip of her claws up and down my arms and back until finally giving me a pat on my butt. When she was satisfied, she faced me.

"You have no idea what's going on, do you?" she asked, a sympathetic look on her face, "Come with me."

Before I could protest or call to the other two for help, Gloria grabbed my hand and started ripping my arm out of its socket to pull me downstairs. I tried fighting against her for just a second. When I felt a sharp pain go through the shoulder that the dullahan had cut off, I decided that maybe following her was the best option.

She led me to the living room. I saw another liminal girl, this one with white fluffy cat paws and feet, lying down on several pillows while she kicked her feet and talked on the phone, her ears flicking tiredly. I couldn't quite catch what she was saying, but I tried to ignore her anyway. That was Mabel, Thomas's werecat homestay. She had caused several problems in my household last time she was there, cuddling me in the sexy way only a cat girl can and making all of the other girls so jealous that they demanded I not to talk to her anymore. They thought of her the same way they thought of Mero, but I didn't see her the same way. Mabel was by no means a conflictual person. Actually, she was pretty shy, and the only reason the girls were jealous of her was because I had a really high body heat that cats love to snuggle up against, and she was rubbing me too hard for their liking. Still, I tried to respect their wishes.

Gloria pulled me up to the kitchen and poured me a glass of apple juice which I gratefully downed before asking for another one, downing that, then getting a third glass that I sipped graciously now that my thirst was quenched. She didn't say anything until she made sure I was comfortable and paying attention to her.

"You broke a streetlamp," she told me.

"I did what now?" I blinked.

"You. Broke. A. Streetlamp," she repeated, "Are you always this slow?"

"Brat," I hissed and she stood and growled at me.

"What did you say?!" she yelled.

Mabel scattered behind the couch and fear and peeked over the back of it, her ears back. Gloria sat back down and sighed heavily. She tried to get control of herself, her fluffy tail wagging anxiously as she tried to steady her breathing, and I made a mental note not the try insulting her like that again.

"Do you know why there were so many monsters around you when you collapsed, but not humans?" she asked. I narrowed my eyes.

"I'd think it's because monsters are attracted to the energy a fight like that gives off," I guessed, "Most liminals share a lot of the same instincts with their animal counterparts, and with a lot of species, if there is a fight nearby, a good portion of them will come and see what's going on, right?" Even as I said that, I knew it wasn't that great of a thought. I couldn't think of a single animal species save for certain predators that would jump in on a fight like that one, most of the examples crossing my mind choosing to run away in the face of danger instead of choosing to face it.

"Unless you're talking about dragon species like ryu or jabberwockies, quite the opposite is true," she explained, "Most monsters consciously avoid fights unless their families or other people they care about are being threatened, like how I was protective over Boss upstairs, and how I'm sure your homestays treat you. Even if they do get into a fight, once they know they're outmatched, most would choose to run."

I didn't see many examples of the girls I lived with running from a fight, but she was right about them protecting me so fervently. I had no doubt that if I was in danger, they wouldn't hesitate to rescue me. It's the very reason I didn't want them getting involved.

"So, that raises the question of why so many liminals were gathering around my fight with that dullahan," I mentioned, and Gloria nodded but making me recoil slightly when she leaned over the table to sniff me a few times, her lip coiling when she was done.

"It's because there's something about you that makes monsters react similarly to the full moon," she declared.

I remembered the first time Miia and Rachnera had suffered from the effects of the full moon when they were living with me, making me learn better for when Centorea and the others moved in. It was the worst fight I had ever gotten into. The dullahan notwithstanding, it would be the only fight I'd consider that I had actually lost, both of them chasing me around the house to steal my chastity and nearly tearing down the building in the process. A few times, they came close. They could both maneuver around the building much better than I could thanks to their physiology, and that also gave them a distinct advantage to trying to catch me. Rachnera was the biggest issue. She would lay traps or tie lassos around me to get me caught in her web, and the only reason I wasn't violated then was because Miia rescued me so she could violate me instead.

With all of the tossing around, I had several cuts and gashes around my body, a few bruises, and even a couple of sprained and broken bones by the next morning. I was lucky I didn't die that night. I was sure the only reason I didn't was because they were more focused on taking my innocence than trying to hurt me, and that distraction made it harder for them to win. If there was something surrounding my fight that caused the surrounding monster population to go wild, then it must be bad.

"Are you sure it's on me, though?" I asked, "It could have been the dullahan I was fighting."

"No, I'm positive it's you," Gloria said confidently, "Not only were all of those girls trying to get at you when Thomas, Sayoko, and I got there, but this energy that you're emitting is… dark. Creatures like me can sense it more easily than other species can."

"What species are you?" I asked, an idea starting to click in my mind.

"I'm a hellhound," she said.

"What other species can sense this energy?" I asked, growling almost angrily. Gloria narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, lacing her fingers together over her mouth.

"Were there other monsters after you?" she dodged the question, but I felt like I should answer this. I crossed my arms, thinking hard about it.

"At first I thought there were two, but I think it was just one considering all of the things surrounding," I explained, "She looked more human than any other monster I had seen before, but she had this pair of black wings and could create these weird spears out of nowhere. Every move she made when she fought the member of the MON Squad who was escorting me back home made her lose a bunch of feathers."

I looked up at Gloria who had been silent so far as she listened to my explanation. I was grateful to her for listening, and judging by how she had treated me up until this point, I could tell that she was really trying to figure this situation out and protect me. That oddly concerned look, though, was throwing me off.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"What made you think there was a third liminal after you?" she growled, her hair raised like the haunches on a wolf, sending a chill down my spine.

"When the MON Squad and I first got attacked, there was a flock of ravens flying around us, but they didn't start attacking us until after Doppel started dragging me away. Even then, they only attacked the MON Squad. Is there something you're not telling me?" I asked. Her lips parted and her eyes starting scanning the table, thinking over all of the information I had given her mixed with when she saw me during my fight, and then a look of realization dawned on her face.

"Oh, I get it now," she said as a smile slowly grew on her face, then she took my hand lightly, "Look, buddy. You don't have to worry about you or your family being hurt."

"Wha- why? How do you even know about that?" I stammered.

"Because if the person who's after you really wanted to hurt you, then they would have," she said assuredly, "And if she wanted to kill you, then believe me, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation."

"How…" I gulped, "How do you know?"

"Because she's my boss," Gloria said, "My real boss, not Thomas."

"Satan?!" I joked as a defense mechanism.

"Something similar," she said shortly, then picked me up and brought me to the door against my will, "But you should really get going because if she finds out you're here, then I'm going to get chewed out for it. Plus, you've been gone all day! Your homestays are probably worried sick at this p- oh, God!"

Gloria jumped out of the way when the door flew off its hinges. The fire in my belly hadn't left just yet, so at first I thought I was being attacked by this mysterious boss the hellhound had mentioned, only to get wrapped up in a familiar feeling of soft chitin that I had come to love. On an instinctive level, I already know who that material belonged to. On a molecular level, the tension and stress in my muscles drained from my body and I found myself leaning into the girl, trying to wrap my arms around her in a hug only to be unable to move because of her own.

As her arms and eight legs wrapped around me, I thought I could feel tears beginning to fall down my face, only to realize that it wasn't sadness, but relief that was flooding over me and making my face flush. I was so happy to see her. I didn't know how long I had been gone, but after all that had happened that day, I felt like I had just gotten home from the crusades only to fall into the arms of my lover after years of torment.

My shirt was starting to get wet. The longer she held me against the floor, leaning the full weight of her spider body on top of mine, the more I began to realize how much my absence that day had hurt her. She was shaking. With every sniffle, her shoulders would twitch, and I swore I had never heard her voice that sad before.

"I was so worried about you!" she sobbed, "How could you leave us like that? When Agent Smith told us what had happened we all started looking for you because we thought you had… We thought you were…" She started crying hard, burying her head into my chest and digging her claws through my already bloody tracksuit, her sobs echoing off the walls of the house. I managed to get my arms free enough to hold her.

"I love you too, Rachnera," I whispered to her, running my hand through her hair, "I'm fine, see? Everything's in working order."

"Shut up!" the arachne whimpered, "I hate you. Don't scare us like that again, OK? Please?"

"OK, then I won't," I agreed.

"Promise me then!" she snapped.

"OK! OK! I promise," I said, and I smiled warmly as her shaking began to stop and her crying slowed. Tilting my head a bit, I could see Thomas, smoking another cigarette like the addict he was, giving me an amused smirk and I crinkled my nose at him in a silent but friendly gesture of "go hang yourself."

"Come on, Rachnee," I told her, trying and mostly failing to push her off of me, "Let's get home. I can't wait to hear what the others are going to say." Rachnera pulled me to my feet and wiped her face, a rare affectionate smile crossing her lips.

"Your mom is very creative when she explains how she's going to kill someone," she subtly warned me.

"Yeah, I know," I said sadly, then with no small amount of fake confidence, I threw up two thumbs, "I'm so screwed!"


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

I've always hated hospitals. Practicing martial arts as long as I have, I tend to get a lot of injuries, concussions or otherwise, so these white walls are something I see often enough that some of the doctors know me by name. Normally, it's fine, but when they saw me on their patient list, they immediately came to say hello yet weren't expecting me to be in as bad shape as I was. With the dried blood all over my clothes, the dirty bandages, and the series of cuts all over my body, I had several members of the staff come in just to chew me out.

It was better than dealing with my mom, though. You might think that she would yell at me or slap me or something along those lines, but if you ask me, the way she really showed her anger was much more terrifying. She kept silent.

It was always prevalent on her face when she was pissed out of her mind, her jaw set in a line and slight wrinkle in between her eyebrows, but she would never say anything. She would only glare at me. Any time that she might have had to speak, her voice was always tight as if she was trying to hold back an explosion within a small bottle. I would have rather she yelled at me. I may have been bedridden so I wouldn't have been able to run away from her, but I'm not good with problems I can't fight against. I obviously can't hit my mom and I can't argue with her if she won't say anything. Even if I could argue with her, what could I possibly say to my own mother that would convince her that me attempting to sacrifice my life was acceptable?

"Mom?" I asked while a nurse was checking the monitor I was hooked up to, unable to really meet either of their eyes, "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," she said tritely.

I nodded and turned my attention back to the TV. It had been like that for two days now ever since my parents and Smith brought me here. I'd say something, she'd give a one word response, and then a suffocatingly awkward silence would persist for the rest of the day. Even the others in the room seemed put off by it. My dad was the only one in the room who really knew how to handle her like this and continued to bury his nose in his laptop, doing research on some kind of algae in the south pacific, completely unfazed by her, but the others? Centorea and Rachnera stayed on the side of my bed opposite of my mom. She still hadn't gotten used to Rachnera so the spider was trying to give her time to cope, but Centorea on the other hand was too afraid to speak. I wasn't sure if that was because my mom had that imposing of a presence to terrify the most dangerous person in the room into silence, or if Centorea was still trying to get my mom to accept her as my girlfriend and wisely knew better than to say anything.

I envied Papi and Suu. They knew something was wrong, judging by the way everyone fussed over me and how tense the room was, but neither of them had the mental capacity to otherwise care. They remained sat on the floor playing with blocks that the orderlies had gotten for them, making sure to get the slime girl rubber gloves so she wouldn't absorb them.

Meanwhile, I kept my eyes glued on the TV. It was the only break I had from the bloodthirsty monotony.

"You keep watching the news," Rachnera sighed, gently stroking the top of my hand she was holding with her thumb, "At least flip to something more exciting once in awhile."

My mom scoffed and Rachnera looked at the ground, defeated. I narrowed my eyes at the parental unit and kissed my lover's knuckles, gently hitting each one before speaking.

"It's either that, day time cartoons, or soap operas," I explained, "And since I'm not a big fan of any animation that comes on before four in the afternoon, and since I can't stand the poor acting in soap operas, the only thing I can bother myself with is CNN, MSNBC, and FOX. Plus, it's kind of fun to see how differently they handle certain issues."

"I've noticed that as well," Centorea stated, "It seems as though they all have some kind of agenda they're trying to push that they never deviate from. They're all reporting the same thing, but they present it in ways that seem to suit what they want everyone else to see."

My dad looked up from his articles just long enough to snicker at the explanation. While I tightened my grip on Rachnera, I couldn't hold back the idiotic, amused grin that I was shooting at her, even my mom cracking a smile.

"What is it?" she asked, crossing her arms defensively.

"Congratulations, Cerea," I said mock proudly, "You finally understand American politics. And I'm not going to turn off the news anyway, because…" my smile fell as I turned back to the screen, "Well, there's something specific I'm looking for."

The two demihumans shared a nervous look between one another. At first, I thought that was going to be the end of the conversation, but then Papi jumped onto the bed, straddling my waist, and Suu pulled on my hospital gown.

"You're not going to go after the people who attacked you, are you?" Papi asked, the concern for me evident on her face.

"Please don't…" the slime agreed.

I blinked at them in surprise, feeling the air in the room shift after the two mentioned that with everyone's eyes digging into me. My parents were especially interested. Thing was… I pulled Papi's head to my chest and stroked her hair, passing a smile to Suu until she gave me one as well. Everyone seemed to relax a tad.

"I'm not an idiot guys," I explained, "I love to fight, sure, but whoever that woman was and whatever organization she and her friends were with were actually trying to kill me. It was… Harrowing. In the octagon, when you have pads and rules to abide by, fighting is fun. It's a sport, a competition. Two people go at it, understanding that one of them is going to win and the other would lose, but otherwise, they know that the fight is for no other reason than to win. That dullahan… she didn't care one way or the other. She wasn't looking to play around, and she didn't care about my consent in the matter. All she wanted to do was kill me. I can't…"

I pulled Papi closer to me and breathed deeply, trying to avoid letting the fear get ahold of me. I could still feel the way her scythe burned as it cut into me. I hadn't stopped having nightmares about her since the day I woke up in Thomas's bed, seeing her dark eyes burning into my skull as the dead look she gave me didn't waver for even a second. When I got my composure back, I looked back up from Papi's hair.

"I'll keep my fighting in the octagon, thank you very much," I joked with a stupid grin on my face, "I like getting hit in the face, but as for penetrating someone? Personally, I think I like doing that to other people better."

"Then what is it you're looking for?" came a familiar voice from the door. We all looked up and everyone collectively groaned at the sight of the government issue black skirt and sunglasses.

"Agent Smith! Should have known I'd hear from you eventually," I told her dryly.

"Good to see you too, ya little twerp," she grumbled, "But we're going to put the banter aside for now. You and I have business to discuss." Everyone sat up, my parents especially.

"Did you find the ones who did this?" my dad started.

"That's why we have these two here," Smith gestured behind her where two monsters in yellow bulletproof vests and combat fatigues poked in, one with a horn sprouting from her forehead and the other with stitches across her face. The only reason I didn't jump at them was because Centorea and Rachnera held me down.

"Tio! Zombina!" I greeted happily, "It's good to see you! I haven't seen you since I got my butt handed to me. I was starting to get worried."

"Ugh, cut it with all that mushy crap," Zombina grumbled, propping her submachine gun on her shoulder, careful to not point it at anyone, "Save it for your harem."

"Harem?" Centorea blushed.

"My…" Rachnera mumbled, blushing and bringing her hand to cheek.

"Oh, my God," my mom snapped, rolling her eyes, "Just tell us what we need to know!"

Everyone blinked at my mom's outburst. The girls nearest me, both of my currently conscious lovers, shrunk under her harsh gaze and the members of the MON Squad broke eye contact from her. Even Smith looked uncomfortable, clearing her throat and focusing her attention strictly on me. I had to give the Agent credit. The only time I had ever seen Smith look remotely uneasy was when I accused her of trying to hurt my family, and my mom was easily more terrifying than I was, so if Smith was able to keep even the slightest ounce of composure under her gaze, she definitely had courage.

Smith leveled her eyes on me, a rarely serious look behind them.

"I need you to tell me again what happened," she said carefully, "And I promise that whatever you have to say will stay between us. No one else will know."

To prove this, Doppel poked her head inside the door before her body became smokey and she shifted into a nurse, walking out and closing the door behind her. Aside from that, Zombina and Tio went around the room shutting off everyone's cell phones, placing them in a box that would prevent any kind of sound from entering or escaping, and Smith even went out of her way to crush the intercom in her ear under her foot. She didn't share any words with me. I knew what she was doing. She was making it so that the NSA or whatever other organization spies on its citizens couldn't eavesdrop on the conversation, even posting a guard outside the door to do so.

I had made it a habit to hide things from her, given her position of authority. Even though she would go out of her way to make sure the girls were happy, even abandoning her duties if she ever felt it necessary, I knew that if I gave her too much probable cause to arrest me that she would have no choice but to act on it. However, going out of her way to commit what was essentially an act of high treason just to protect me? That was going too far. She would never turn her back on the ICEP like this unless she felt there was no other option to keep the peace.

"Is there anything I've left out?" I asked her, deathly calm. Rachnera narrowed her eyes at me. Suu and Papi especially were able to notice the change since I'm never that serious around them.

"Just tell me the story again," Smith replied, "Don't leave out any detail, even about that friend of yours who rescued you." I curled my lip. I wasn't aware that she knew about Thomas, but given the resources the government had to track its citizens, perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised.

In any case, I sighed. I had told her this story on several occasions, and I was starting to get tired of it. If, however, I could glean some new information by telling her what I left out previously, then I might have to take advantage of that. I glanced up at the TV for a second. Then, when I saw that Anderson Cooper was talking about yet another depressing topic that no one really cared about, I turned back to Smith.

"I told you every inane detail about the fight, both before and during," I said sourly.

"And after? I'm more concerned about what happened after your friend found you," Smith said, leaning forward in her chair, leaving a noticeable sign that she wasn't taking notes about this conversation. I stared at her flatly.

"Did you know Thomas has two more homestays now?"

"Is that important?" Smith asked, Tio peeking out of the window behind the blinds.

"Very," I said simply.

At this, everyone in the room perked up. If anyone was listening half mindedly, staring at the floor or twiddling their thumbs, they looked up at me in shock, and anyone who had been entirely focused on the conversation arched their brow in surprise. My mom was the only one with a unique reaction. She dipped her head lower, staring at me like the dangerous predator she really was.

"Go on," Smith said.

"One of his homestays is a hellhound," I explained, pausing and watching for a reaction, but when I didn't get one, I continued, "She was very aggressive about me telling her what she wanted to know, and when I told her the thing about a flock of ravens and breaking a lampost, she pretty much threw me out of the house. She told me…"

Something gripped me then. I had thought about what Gloria had said for as long as I had been in the hospital, making sure never to tell the others about that conversation, but actually saying it, finally verbalizing what had been worrying me for so long, made my throat seize up. It wasn't just difficult to say. It wasn't as if fear was holding me back from telling them. No, it was more like a dark energy was trying to drown me the longer I focused on this topic, a stark realization that whatever was coming was going to be big.

"She told me that her boss was looking for me," I said finally.

Nobody in the room knew who or what I was talking about, judging from the confused murmurs flying across the room. Only my mom and Smith seemed to react. They didn't say anything, though, and the moment was only there for a second, barely long enough for me to notice, but I saw them share a concerned look with one another. It was so brief that for a second, I thought it wasn't there. The only thing that made me realize that something was truly going on behind those stone cold looks of theirs was that my mom didn't hide her concern well. Anger? Sure, but not her concern.

"I'd think it's been a long day, don't you think?" she said, standing up and beginning to fuss over everyone in the room. She checked my monitors and my bandages, she made sure Centorea's ponytail was wrapped tightly, then that Rachnera's top was covering as much as possible, that Papi and Suu had juice boxes, and even straightened Zombina's and Tio's hair before anyone could even react.

"Mom, what are you-" I started.

"No offense, coordinator, but I think you should give my son some rest," she said quickly, trying to push them out of the room.

"Well, I've got what I needed anyway," Smith said, not meeting my mom's eyes, "As of this moment, this situation is in the hands of the ICEP, but just to be safe, we'll be leaving the MON Squad with you in case the liminals that came after you decide to come back."

"I appreciate-" I tried to say, only for my mom to put her hand on my ankle to shut me up as she continued to push everyone out.

"Thank you, Agent Smith!" she said harshly, "Please leave."

When everyone was out of the room, the tension in the air was so tight that I could almost hear everyone's heart beat. We were all looking at my mom with bewildered looks. She seemed as if she would have rather jumped out of the eighth story window than be in that room at the moment. My dad was the only one putting a different gaze on her, looking at her disappointedly.

"OK…" I said at length, "What was that about?"

"I'm hungry," she lied, "I'm going to go get something from the cafeteria. Text me if you want anything!"

With that, she ran out of the room. I sighed and turned my attention back to the TV, making a promise to myself that this wasn't over yet.

(...)

"Keep your hands up, dude!" I told Thomas as I boxed with him.

I had only been in the hospital a few days before the doctors felt comfortable letting me leave, and two weeks after that, I felt like I had healed up enough to start training again, so I called Thomas and essentially demanded that he come with me to the gym. As much as a homebody as he was, I hadn't seen him in months, and didn't want the only interaction we had all year to be me bleeding out in his bedroom. Was that wrong? Maybe not, but perhaps I should have told him beforehand that I was going to have him help me with my muay thai.

The longer I punched the mits he was holding out for me, the more pain I saw on his face. I threw one combo- two jabs with an uppercut and nearly knocked him off his feet. Then, I followed up with a cross and an overhand and he nearly fell over. The only time I actually knocked him off his feet, though, was when I threw a roundhouse kick to his head which he expertly blocked, sure, but was also hard enough to throw him to the other side of the room.

I made some kind of hideous noise as I panicked that I hurt him and ran over, Gloria and Sayoko meeting me there.

"Crap! I'm sorry dude! I'm so sorry!" I yelped, making an even uglier noise when Gloria slapped me with the back of her hand.

"You've done enough! Go sit in the corner!" she growled at me, making the floor rumble.

"But I-"

"NOW!" this time, the weights in the room started rattling and the people using them looked over at us with annoyed expressions, shaking their heads and trying to go back to what they were doing.

"Gloria-kun, you're so mean!" Sayoko squeaked, her tails wagging violently, "He didn't mean it!"

"Why are you defending this idiot?" Gloria turned to her dryly.

I decided that now would be a good time to go. While Sayoko, as sweet as she was, attempted to ease things between me and hellhound counterpart, I sidled over to Mabel who was curled up by the windows bathing in the sun. She barely paid me any mind. The only thing she did when I came over was slightly open one eye to notice I was there, then flick her tail in my general direction. I sat next to her and watched her two roommates go at it, waiting for Thomas to gain his footing again. He was starting to stand which was good. I was just waiting for him to fall back over, because I hit him pretty hard with this newfound strength of mine.

It was something I was slowly getting used to. After Gloria had told me I was strong to break a street lamp during my fight with the dullahan, I had noticed that that wasn't a one time occurence, and found myself having to struggle to keep from either hurting people or breaking something. I thought I had gotten a bit of control over it. Part of the reason I dragged Thomas out was so I could see if I could control that level of strength when my adrenaline was pumping, but I guess it needed a bit more work. I just hoped I didn't hurt him too severely.

"Gloria still giving you crap?' Mabel asked, not bothering to look at me still.

"Yeah," I mumbled.

"Pity," she said tritely.

"I get what you mean," I agreed, "The sad thing is that in another life, she and I could have been friends. She and I are basically the same person. I feel like the only reason she's so cautious around me is because of the nonsense that happened in December, so she's unwilling to see me as anything but dangerous. Happy New Year, by the way."

"You too," Mabel said, "But you're right."

"Still a woman of few words?" I teased with a small smile.

She huffed at me and readjusted her position on the window, telling me this conversation was over.

I scooted back on the windowpane myself, leaning my back against the window as if to somewhat mimic the motion and continued to watch Thomas get on his feet, watching Sayoko continue to fuss over him, and Gloria lecture him about being more careful around me. She kept pointing his finger at him, yapping about keeping his head up. If nothing else, she seemed like a chihuahua trying to be noticed, but then her tail curled in between her legs and she hugged him close, muttering something in his ear. Really, if that's how she treats those she cares about, she and I really weren't that different.

It infuriated me. First impressions were powerful, and with mine making her think I was too dangerous to be around her family, I felt like I missed out on making a new friend. If nothing else, watching me all the time like she was ready to throw done was annoying.

"You OK, dude?" I asked Thomas when he came over.

"Yeah, I'm good. Having fun?" he shot back with an amused look.

In the time I had been watching the group, Mabel had fallen asleep on my chest, nuzzling into the crook of my neck. With her tail flicking back and forth, she was digging her claws into my work out shirt, a white tee with the sleeves ripped off, and pawing at it like she was trying to fluff her bed, purring loud enough to give an industrial lawn mower a run for its money.

"Of course. You know cats love me," I bragged humbly.

"I'm pretty sure it's not just cats," Thomas teased.

"But my overwhelming attractiveness aside," I interjected, "Unless you want to go home, we're going to switch to weight lifting."

"I'm fine, dude," he defended.

"You were out for at least a few minutes," I admonished, furrowing my brow at him, "You know my rule. We're either finished with mit work, or we're completely finished and we can go get dinner. Your choice."

"Dude, really? I'm fine, but if you want to stop, then we'll stop," he snapped. We glared at each other for a few seconds, Gloria and Sayoko watching us carefully with the latter nomming some funyuns, before I kicked Mabel off my lap and stood up.

"Then, weights it is!" I said, masking a small bit of rage behind a happy smile.

I had to admit; as stubborn as he was, he was a good friend. Without another word, we found an open bench and set ourselves up on it. As we gathered a few unused weights, I caught the attention of the kobold owner of the gym, Pelt, who enthusiastically waved at us but otherwise kept her distance as she skipped over to a chunky dude who was lifting some dumbells in the corner. I shivered as I felt the hair on the back of my neck raise up. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Gloria had broken her focus on me to lick her chops as she watched Pelt, eyeing her up like a fancy piece of steak. Normally, I would have just shaken my head at her demeanor, but I saw something in it that begged a question.

If one liminal was glaring at another that way, it could have been for a variety of reasons. There was a list of constants. In most cases, it was due to power level, like how Centorea held controlled over Papi and Miia because she could out fight them, but in others, there was a rivalry between species, some having traits more akin to domination while other species were more submissive. The way Gloria looked at Pelt, though, was like a animal hunting its prey.

I knew she wasn't your normal canine, but seeing a hellhound view a kobold like they were going to kill them for no other reason than personal enjoyment didn't seem right for some reason. Then again, "hell" was literally in her name. Just like the dullahan and the fallen angel that tried to kill me, she was more of a demon than a monster, so maybe the normal rules to monster girl psychology didn't apply to her. Still, it made me tense like she could turn on Pelt, or me and Thomas, at any moment. In any case, she had the same type of demonic energy as the three monsters that had attacked me, and the only question this raised in my mind was "what attracted their attention." Clearly, I had done something that made demons quiver, but what? And why was the looked Gloria gave Pelt so much different than the dullahan trying to kill me?

Agent Smith, Monsters New Law, and everyone in my household tried their hardest to make it clear to me that my attackers had been after MON and I had just gotten in the way. However, I just couldn't believe that. It didn't make any sense for one of their number to go out of their way to try to take me down unless I factored somewhere in their plans.

"You good, dude?" Thomas woke me up as I lied down on the weight bench.

"Spot me?" I asked, gripping the bar, and all he did was nod before I started pressing.

Counting the bar itself, we had put two hundred pounds of weight on, and I wasn't having any trouble working it despite it being my upper limit. I was pressing first ten, then twenty, and then thirty without any issue. It doesn't matter how strong you might have been, or how long you've worked out, steroids notwithstanding, two hundred pounds wasn't easy for anyone to wield, but at the moment, there might as well have not been anything on the bar.

"How are you even doing that?" Thomas laughed, Sayoko cheering me on and Mabel narrowly opening one eye to see me.

"Just put more on," I snapped, setting up to rest.

"OK…" he mumbled.

I didn't realize that I was putting him off by telling him so harshly to put more weight on, but there was something I wanted to test. Once I had set the bar down, I was expecting a type of posthumous pain to hit me, like my anger leftover from getting my but handed to me had kept me strong, but I didn't feel anything. I wasn't sore, or in any pain, and I barely felt the burn from the first set of fifty. I needed to go further. I needed to see just how strong I had become or else this nagging feeling was going to keep bugging me.

They put another few weights on for a total of three hundred, and I started pumping again, putting everything I had into pushing myself as far I could go. Once again, I hit another fifty repetitions and didn't feel anything afterward. At that point, I didn't know if Thomas and the others were just impressed with my strength and wanted to see how far I could take this or if they knew what I was trying to do, but they added even more weight without me having to ask this time. We put on another hundred pounds and kept going. Once again, I made it up to fifty and we put on another hundred, then another, and another, and it wasn't until we busted out the weight set for ogres and put a solid eight hundred pounds on it when we realized that my strength…

It wasn't human. The strongest man in history could only do a one-rep-max of a thousands pounds (I think I remember reading that somewhere), and even then, he was someone who had trained specifically to be able to lift weights that heavy. I was a fighter. I didn't train to lift, I trained to beat the snot out of people. I was lucky I was even able to do two hundred last year. It wasn't physically possible for me to go up seven hundred pounds just so I could feel a burn in that timespan, whether or not I set out to do it.

"I think you should take a break," said a timid voice in my ear. Courtesy of the government watch Smith had set me on, Mono was watching me from one of the buildings over a mile away and had put a mic in my ear so I could communicate with her over that distance. Shy, four foot twerp didn't want to come inside.

"I got what I needed anyway," I said darkly and set the bar down, ignoring the applause I was getting and stormed over to the vending machine. Pain or no, I needed a drink.

"What were you even looking for?"

"I don't know, your eye is big enough. You could probably see it from there, now couldn't you?" I hissed.

"That was harsh, Kayo," Thomas growled, handing me a rag towel to dry off the sweat with.

Even as he said that, I could hear Mono whine from the other side of the intercom and I immediately felt bad. Yeah, I was having a bad day. She didn't need me taking it out on her, especially since I knew she was insecure about the size of her one eye. I dropped my shoulders and groaned, popping out a bag of potato chips for her and an energy drink for me out of the vending machine and held the bag out to the window for her to see.

"You think that's going to make it up to her?" Thomas asked, popping out a cigarette as we stepped outside for a bit of fresh air with Gloria and Sayako followed us, the latter wrapping herself around her master's free arm.

"Definitely not, but it's a start," I said, "I know I can't buy back someone's forgiveness after saying something mean, but I also can't go back in time and take back what I said. Only thing I can really do is move forward and try to be a better friend, you know?"

"And you think chips are good way to do that?"

"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't just a bit of a bribe," I said through a grin, watching Thomas roll his eyes.

"So, there is no way you should have been able to do that," he followed up, "I can see why Gloria thinks you're an incubus."

I glanced up at him for a second. He said that so matter of factly that I thought I had hallucinated that title for a second, but then Gloria perked up, her tail poofing out anxiously as panic spread all over her features. Maybe he wasn't paying too much attention to it, though. I titled my head and gave her such a strong, incredulous look that he wasn't sure how to respond.

"Care to elaborate on that, GG?" I asked, using a mocking tone with the nickname.

"Was he not supposed to know that?" Thomas followed up.

"No," she said tightly, color flushing her face. I stepped over to her, crossing my arms and lifting one hand to rub at a temple as a headache was starting to hit me.

"Look, Gloria," I led, "I did a lot of research on monsters when I first became a host for Miia, both real and mythological, and even more after I was attacked, especially on demons. I know what an incubus is. The only problem is that while succubi, shinigami, zombies, fallen angels, dullahans, and hellhounds like you are recognized by the ICEP as official monster nations, I've never seen Incubi in their public records."

"That's because they don't exist," Gloria said with a slightly defeated tone as her tail stopped wagging, "At least, not under normal circumstances."

"And you think I am one?" I followed. She gave me a dry smile.

"You think the Queen of all Demons would try to kidnap you otherwise?" she said.

"Start from the beginning," I shot nervously, "And this time, try not to leave anything out."


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

My mom had been in the military she was younger. She was one of the first female members in a special forces unit called the "Slayer Force" that was only ever called on for elite jobs that she said she could never elaborate on. She said it was illegal, that her briefings were classified and that telling even her family was tantamount to treason. I never pushed her for answers. Sure, I had little respect for the law, but I loved my mother and would always respect her need for silence, whether it was legal or if telling me about her experience would harm her mental health in some way. She was a veteran, and most veterans suffer in some way after their tours of duty.

She and my dad had actually met on one of her missions. They explained to me that her unit was tasked with protecting his research team while they went on an excursion in the Amazon Rainforest, but they didn't elaborate on anything else after that. Yet again, I didn't push. If neither of them could legally tell me the details of what went on during their trip, then that was all their was to it.

Given recent events, however, her privacy was going to take a backseat. I had nearly been killed, my family and loves of my life had been put in danger, and the way Gloria put it, I was slowly turning into an Incubus, a supposed legendary monster. I suspected my mom knew something the way she interacted with Smith. That day in the hospital when the coordinator had come to visit me and how familiarly she and my mom had treated each other, as well as her sheer insistence on avoiding talking about their relationship set me on edge. How did they know each other? Not only that, but when my mom met Rachnera, Suu, and Papi and was able to fight them off with only minimal damage to her body- as opposed to my dad who nearly died of blood loss -wasn't something a normal soldier was capable of.

Arachne were some of the most dangerous monster species due to their speed, strength, and ability to spin webs to trap their foes and manipulate the battlefield. There wasn't a Navy Seal, a Green Beret, nor an Army Ranger that could reasonably take them on and win, and yet, she was able to defeat Rachnera using nothing more than a baking whisk and come out completely unscathed. She had to have been specifically trained to fight liminals to be able to accomplish something like that.

Maybe I was overthinking it, but the way I saw it was pretty simple: Agent Smith and my mom knew each other, Agent Smith worked in the Intercultural Exchange Program, and my mom knew how to fight monsters. Hey, it made sense to me.

The next morning after I got home from the gym, my mom took Papi, Suu and my dad to the grocery store to fill up our starving pantry that I had neglected to take care of recently, so I took advantage of their absence and snuck into their study. My mom had trained me from birth in martial arts and survivalism, and now I was going to make her regret that.

The door had three locks on it, and not just your basic chain or deadbolt but complex puzzle locks, and it took me awhile, but I managed to unlock them then stepped inside. Next was their safe. Finding a few items to make shift a tool, I listened closely to the tumblers and found the right combination, and yet even that wasn't enough. There were several lock boxes inside there. Aside from that, there were traps attached to each of them, some that would release gas, others poison darts, and some that would most likely kill me if I triggered them, but even this didn't pose any threat to me. I picked every single one.

And yet, I didn't find anything I was looking for. Most of those lock boxes had nothing more than pictures inside them, maybe a few letters, some dossiers, and I spent maybe an hour digging my way through them and reading every single one, but they didn't tell me anything I wanted to know. Those pictures were of dead soldiers, mug shots, or something similar. The dossiers only told me about the geopolitical situations in various different countries and environments. Some of them were placed in the desert, others in historical locations in Japan, some in the urban cities of the USA… I couldn't find a single common trend between them. If I could just find a single thing that linked these locations and mug shots together, these scenes of finished battles and crumbled ruins, then maybe I could find out more about the Incubus.

That was the inciting action for me. Just because I respected my mom's need for privacy didn't mean that I never wanted to know more about her, and I always suspected that given her status as an elite soldier that she had some ties in the government, and when the existence of monster girls was made known to the public several years ago, I often toyed with the thought that my mom knew about them. The fact that she and Agent Smith had history only compounded that thought, but still wasn't enough to set me on a mission to discover her secrets. Then, Gloria told me about the Incubus, about how they only reveal themselves on the rare occasions throughout history when humans and monsters regularly interact with one another, and how I was slowly turning into one. Maybe, if someone else had become an Incubus, maybe a celebrity or some random stranger, I wouldn't have cared. Heck, my transformation alone didn't bother me that much. Power was cool. The fact that I could probably tear down a building if I hit it hard enough, or at least that was my guess, was something that drove me wild.

No, it was the fact that the Incubus was a pawn of the Demon Queen. Gloria made that part very clear. The fact that her "boss" and several of her boss's lackies had come after me, even if that attack happened several months ago, was cold hard proof that my family was in danger. If they wanted to come after me, what was going to stop them from using Miia or Centorea to get at me? If my mom knew something about the Incubus race, on the incredibly unlikely chance that she actually had knowledge on it to begin with, and if that knowledge could somehow save the people I cared about, I was going to take it.

No one messes with my family. If the Demon Queen wanted to come at me, then by all means she was welcome to try, and when she did, I was going to be ready for her.

I put each of the documents aside and rubbed my temples. I read every single one of them through and through, backwards and forwards, and yet there was nothing there that told me anything I wanted to know. I was starting to give up. Those documents didn't contain a single thing related to monster species, nor the Incubus, nor did they detail what my mom did in the Slayer Force.

My head jerked up. The minute that thought crossed my mind, my heart began to race and I began searching every nook and cranny in the study once more to find something I may have overlooked. There had to have been something, anything that could tell me what she did on her missions. I wasn't entirely sure how confidential this task force actually was, but the lack of any information in the office of two of its very members didn't sit well in my mind, so yet again, the lack of any significant answers set my fire once more.

There wasn't anything in the desk. In the drawers or the room's closet, I only found loose printer paper and souvenirs from other countries that didn't hold any significance either. There weren't any secret compartments in the room either. Looking underneath the safe or on the underside of the desk didn't reveal any levers or pull strings to latch onto, and I was slowly running out of ideas of where I could search, and took a few deep breaths to think. I had to pause. I was running myself ragged and wasn't taking the time to think. I steadied my breathing and looked around the room once more.

No one took care of this part of the house. That much was obvious judging by the dust settling on the top of the books and the ink stains on the carpet. The paint was thin, the air was dry… it was like this was the land that time forgot judging by the cobwebs settled in the corners of the ceiling.

Then, my eyes caught it. On my parent's desk was a picture, an old family portrait I remember taking the year I turned ten years old for my grandparents who had retired in Germany. My dad looked happy and oblivious as ever, sporting a goofy grin as slinky eyes shook away from his novelty glasses, that jape contrasting harshly with his onyx suit and blue shirt. I was wearing something similar, but more churchy. Tugging at the blue tie, I tried to rip it and the collar of my lime green shirt away from my neck to give myself time to breath, my grey pinstripe suit unbuttoned and falling sloppily around me. My mom, on the other hand, looked rather angelic, looking as amazing as ever in a cerulean gown with long, lace sleeves.

Looking at this picture several years later, a grim smile crossed my lips. I didn't see it back then, and I never paid too much attention to the copy of it that sat in the living room since then, but behind that peaceful smile she was wearing, I could see the stress behind my mom's eyes. Her smile was forced, and her eyes were bloodshot. Her hair was tied in a neat bun, but looking closely, I could see loose strands poking around her head. I remembered the picture a bit better now. When I was ten, I sucked up my pride and was grateful when the whole ordeal was over, but now that I was an adult, I could remember just how much my mom went through to get me and my dad straightened out for such a nice picture. I had complained the whole time. The suit was suffocating, and the tie felt like it was choking me, and I didn't stop whining about how uncomfortable I was until I was home and in my pajamas. My dad had also insisted on putting his own touch to the photo, and to my mom's dismay, chose the googly eyes to be present his personality.

"Such a happy family. I can't imagine all the stuff you went through just to make me happy," I said fondly, choking back the pain in my chest, "And now look at me. I'm breaking several laws trying to uncover your secrets using the skills you taught me. I'm a mess."

I picked up the picture and looked at it nostalgically for what must have been several minutes, memorizing every detail that I had ignored over the years when I admired the one in the living room. However, the hairs on the back of my neck rose when I realized something wasn't quite right. This photo was the same but, the lighting was off. It was in the same kind of frame as its twin, but it was like it was pressing closer to the glass than the other one.

I had an idea. Carefully, I unlocked the back of the frame and let the contents of what it contained fall out, revealing not just the picture itself, but several other packets, scripts, letters, and photos. I rolled my eyes and slapped my forehead. All of that work, all of the security on the doors and safe, just to hide your most important documents in a picture frame? Well done, Mom. After going through the booby traps, which actually break federal law in terms of home defense, most thieves wouldn't think of something so simple. Only reason I did was because I've lived with her my whole life.

I read every letter and looked at every picture. Turns out I was right. My mom was hiding something from me. Folding everything together, I placed everything I found into my back pocket, making sure to save a single picture, the one I deemed to be the most important in my wallet for later, then stepped out and found Rachnera sitting alone watching the TV.

I said hello to her, and she looked up and waved at me, continuing to sip her late midday coffee. Confused, I furrowed my brow. Normally, she at least says one or two words to acknowledge my presence, even if those words are incredibly snarky and cutting, so I figured whatever was on the tube must have been pretty good to keep that distracted. Casually, I slipped my way past her legs and curled up in front of her, resting my head on her boobs as she looped her arms around my neck.

"Anything good on?" I asked, seeing a live reporting of something going on downtown, CNN's logo down in the corner.

"Not really," she said lowly, resting her chin on the top of my head.

"You seem kind of hooked," I noted, lacing my fingers through hers.

"Hmm," she mumbled.

I watched closely as the news chopper zoomed in a comic store I used to frequent before I had a family to think about, police and SWAT members surrounding the area. As I looked more closely, I thought I saw the pig shaped face of a liminal, an orc if I remembered correctly, and narrowed my eyes as the story unfolded, detailing the motives and demands of this terrorist group as they held up the storefront. I guessed this was why I hadn't heard from Smith or the MON Squad all day.

However, there was something about this whole scenario that stuck out to me, and I think that's what held Rachnera's attention so fiercely.

"Hey, Rachnee? Am I seeing this right?" I chirped.

"All of the orcs there are men," she said.

"I thought… Aren't all liminals girls?" I asked.

"Under normal circumstances," she said, "Sometimes, however, a group of monster girls will kidnap men and corrupt them until they become monsters themselves." I swallowed.

"Incubus?" I said, almost inaudibly and for a second, I didn't think Rachnera heard me, but then her claws dug into my shirt tensely, her voice coming as a hoarse whisper.

"No, no they're not. This kind of corruption only happens when liminals inject their blood inside a human male and then have sex with them, activating the now dormant monster traits in the blood that they've given the man that they've captured," she explained, but hesitated for a second, "Honey? Where did you hear that term?"

I was about to answer. I really had no desire to hide this from her. In fact, after hiding it for so long, I was starting to feel my sanity slip away and wanted nothing more than to spill my guts to Rachnera, telling her all my thoughts, insecurities and fears since my attack, but I never got the chance. We heard a scream. Jumping up, we started to run towards Miia's room, only to have Centorea meet us halfway and tackle us.

"Cerea, what the heck?" I grumbled, jumping up and helping them to their feet since I had the strength to do so.

"She's awake!" she shouted, her eyes darting wildly and her face flush with excitement, "Miia's awake! Come on!"

Rachnera and I shared only a single glance with one another before sprinting after her. Miia had been in her coma for most of the last year, and now, after all this time without her, she was finally showing signs of waking up? No, Centorea doesn't exaggerate. According to her, the Centaur race knows nothing about hyperbole and are always straight laced with their masters, honor coming far before hilarity, so if she said Miia was awake, then Miia was indeed awake. I don't know if she and Rachnera were surprised that out ran them, but given the circumstances, I didn't really care.

I crashed into the room, the door flying off its hinges in true semblance to the person who occupied it until it snapped in half on the other side of the room. My eyes immediately fell on the bed. Someone was checking her pulse, but I didn't see nor care who it was because sitting up in the bed, a tired look in her eyes, red hair falling far past her shoulders and a scarlet tail waving alongside the floor was my first love. Her golden eyes met mine. When she saw me, a small, weak smile spread across her lips to show off her sharp snake fangs, but she didn't move. Frankly, she didn't have to. I stood there in silence for a second, taking a brief moment to absorb every noticeable feature, relishing in the sight of her moving again before I finally stepped forward.

Pushing past whoever was checking on her, I felt the heaviness in my heart lift away from me, as if the weight of the sky had been lifted from me and dropped to my knees next to her. My hands found hers and I brought them to my cheek. Her thumb brushed against my skin, and I felt something wet wipe against my face. I was crying. Tears wouldn't stop falling down my face, and when I looked up at Miia once again, seeing her look at me with that loving smile I had missed for so long, they fell even harder.

I won't lie. I screamed, and I sobbed so hard that I knew I would lose my voice. Without any more hesitation, I launched myself into her chest, wrapping my arms around her neck as she looped her tail around me, and yet again, I cried even harder.

It hit me just then how much I missed her. It wasn't just her love that I missed, nor her smile, her hugs, her constant affection, or even the amazing sex, but when her tail threatened to snap me in half, I realized just how much I needed her. The last few months after her accident had been unbearable without her. The weight of everything following my attack, my transformation, my parents arriving back in town after their trip to Antarctica, and the unnerving paranoia that made me think I needed to hide my feelings from everyone came crashing down on me when I saw her. These tears weren't just from happiness. They were also from regret, from remorse, from fear, and from the utter relief that came with knowing that even though everything else was going wrong, there was always hope. She was alive. Miia, the woman I fell in love with and planned to marry, was alive and holding me close to her as she had done so many times before.

Even though I was feeling more and more pain the longer my tears fell, all of these bottled up emotions exploding outside of me, seeing Miia again, feeling her tail and kissing her again, it inspired me to keep moving forward. With everything else going wrong, seeing her face again was more than enough to give me strength.

"Stop crying, Darling!" Miia said in my ear, her voice coming as a croak from being asleep for so long, "Please don't cry. You don't have to cry for my sake."

"I can't help it!" I sobbed in her chest, "I just… I missed you, OK? I don't want to see you like that ever again. Please, don't ever do that to me. Never again, OK? OK?!" I gripped her arms tightly, making sure not to hurt her but I struggled containing my strength.

"I promise. I… I promise, Darling. I promise," she insisted, and as she spoke I could hear the sadness in her voice, my hair starting to feel wet as tears of her own hit my head.

"I love you…" I groaned.

"I love you too…" Miia returned.

We stayed like that for awhile, my sobs starting to die down into silent grunts but the crying had stopped. I didn't want to move. Unless Miia herself told me to get up, I wasn't about to let her go for anything. I felt as though if I lost my grip on her, she would fly away from me again, maybe fall into another coma or slither out of my life like she wasn't even in it to begin with. I didn't want her to go. Mentally, I knew that she wasn't going anywhere like that, but my body wouldn't let me regain control.

A huge weight tried to knock me away from her. I felt something hit me from the side, but I wouldn't be moved, so whatever tackled me wrapped its appendages around both of us, two strong yet slender arms finding their way around us. I didn't even have the presence of mind to feel that it was Rachnera.

Centorea was next and trotted over, leaning over and resting her head on Miia's, and when I could gather my wits long enough to feel their presence was when I heard their cries as well. I had been so selfish recently. Being stuck in my own mind for so long blinded me from seeing how much Miia's absence had been hurting them too.

"You- were gone- asleep for so long!" Rachnera whined through her own guttural wails, "How could you do this to me?!

"Rachnee, you're so pitiful! Get ahold of yourself!" Centorea snapped at her.

"You're crying too!" Rachnera shot back.

"I am? I…" Centorea clearly didn't know what was happening as she touched her face and pulled her hands back to see her salty tears, then let herself go and crashed into us and let the sadness overcome her.

Somewhere along the line, our crying turned into laughter. I had heard about something like this where a human feels emotions so strongly that their brain completely shuts down, and as a panic response, they start laughing, as if they have no clue how else to respond to whatever put them in that state. Just like a computer experiences a blue screen of death, laughing due to fear is the same thing for the human mind.

Miia was back, Rachnera and Centorea were holding us together, and here I was at the center of things. We were all together again. Something about seeing all four of us sharing a loving embrace like this, with the three women I loved sharing this moment with me, just seemed right to me. It put a warm feeling in my heart. I figured this was a moment of such intense passion and love that its effect would stay with me for years to come, possibly for the rest of my life.

"Well, ain't this a touching reunion," said the person who had been checking Miia's vitals. To be perfectly honest, I had completely forgot that she was there.

I looked up at her, unable to break off the smile and my cheeks starting to cramp up because of it, but somehow was able to wipe the tears from my face and give this person the attention she deserved. At the same time, I mentally kicked myself for being so distracted with my own business not to realize she was inside my house, but who cared? I was way too happy to care.

Looking her over once, I could see that she was a liminal, but couldn't tell what kind. Her features were impish and her body was completely humanoid, so the only indicator that she was a liminal were the pointed ears poking out from behind her sandy blonde hair, but of those noticeable points, I could say the same for a lot of other species. There were a lot of monsters that could take active steps to hide their nonhuman appearance and blend more easily in society, so I pushed my first ideas about her being a fairy or an elf out of my head and tried to focus on who she was, not what she was. If she was hiding her species in the first place, she must not have wanted me to know about it. In any case, she had a striking type of beauty about her. Matching her impish appearance, she had sharp cheekbones and a beauty mark under one eye, and as for her eyes themselves, she wore thick eyeliner around the entire orb but no other makeup. She was also noticeably thin, making me feel like I should make her a heavy dish like shepherds pie to bulk her up when my caretaker's instincts kicked in.

Then, my eyes fell on her outfit. Her dress had a short skirt that was fluffed with a petticoat, the majority of the dress shaped like black overalls with puffy white sleeves, matched with black elevator sandals striped thigh high socks. I recognized it immediately as the same gothic lolita style from one of my favorite video game characters, Margaret Moonlight from a game I hadn't played in years, but there was something more fresh about the style in my mind. I couldn't place it though. There was just something about her, though, that struck me as familiar.

I managed to pull myself away from Miia and rammed myself into the girl, wrapping my arms around her without even thinking to ask for permission, you know, like an idiot. I was just way too happy to even bother. Miia's smiling face from the bed was so deeply stuck in my mind that I was having trouble seeing anything that wasn't three feet in front of my face, borderline hallucinating as if her face was inches from mine. In any case, I ended up hitting the girl so hard that I made her stumble backwards.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to push you," I said through a laugh.

"Nah, you're fine," she waved off, giving off this goofy, high pitched chortle that hurt my ears, "I get it. I saved your girl. What are you going to do? NOT buy me a drink?" I blinked at her for a second and rolled my eyes.

"I'll see you in the kitchen then!" I said and led her out, making sure to give one last look to Miia who kept her eyes on me as I slowly closed the door.

Silently, the girl followed me towards the half wall in the kitchen that doubled as a bar counter, but the whole time, I felt needlessly on edge as if I was being watched. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end. Now that I wasn't in the same room as my fiance, my body was starting to wake up a bit more and become aware of its surroundings, and with a start, I realized what this woman's deal was. Something about her was setting off some red flags. Before we had even gotten out of the hallway, my shoulders had tensed up at the hole she was burning into the back of my head with the look she was giving me.

That raised a few questions. The blood thirst she was radiating was so palpable that even without my incubus instincts, I would have been able to feel it, so why was she here? Not only that, but what was she doing with Miia?

The one thing I knew for sure, though, was that even though she clearly wanted to hurt us, she wasn't going to go through with it. If she wanted to hurt any of the girls, she would have. What was really keeping me on edge, however, was that we were alone now. The only people in the house were all in the same room together, so me and this girl, whoever she might have been, were alone. It was the perfect opportunity to make a move. Come to think of it, I didn't even know when or how she got into the house.

Silently, I let off a humorless laugh. I was in danger. I poured the girl a glass of whiskey and coke and kept my eyes on the glass as she stared at me unblinking. I slid it down to her, meeting her eyes. For a second, I processed her heterochromia, one eye being a bright teal and the other a sharp amber, but held eye contact with her as she downed the drink in one gulp. We sat there for a bit, staring one another down. Her jaw was set, and I could see each and every one of her muscles tensed up as she tried to keep her focus on me, but the sweat piling up on her forehead showed a different story. I smirked, sensing her unease. That formerly bloodthirsty energy from before was slowly dying away being replaced with submission.

Just like her, my own skin burned. I felt a blazing fire envelop me, tearing me up from the inside and spilling out of me, and I just couldn't help but feel the fury of a dragon roaring within me. It truly felt like I could breathe fire if I really wanted to. I think she got the same impression since the moment I realized just how much power I had over her, she broke eye contact with me, showing me full well that I was in charge.

"I guess what they say about you is true, innit?" she asked, brushing a strand of hair out of her face with a toothy, crooked smile. I smiled slightly at the slang.

"Guess it is," I said, "Question is, do you know what that really means for you?"

Feigning intelligence seemed like my best bet, as if that would get her off kilter and take any control she might have had away from her. I she thought she had any cards to play, I would lose the ground I had already gained. My goal was to get her talking about why she was in my house uninvited, what her goal was, and anything else she might have felt like telling me, and it felt like the best way to do that was to make her think she couldn't hide anything from me.

"Better than most, I'd like to think," she turned back to me again, running her hands up and down my forearm, "How have you been? I'm glad to see all those cuts Lala gave you have healed up."

"Does that surprise you?" I asked, my smile dropping immediately. Off the top of my head, I had no idea who Lala was or how this girl knew about my injuries, but it helped me figure out who this girl was.

"For an incubus? Of course not, I've heard the stories," she dismissed, cackling and running her hands up to my bicep, leaning over the counter. I narrowed my eyes, glancing at her hands then back to her.

"You would think I would have," I responded, firmly pushing her fingers down. She mockingly put her fingers up to her lip sand gasped.

"And here I thought your concubines might have told you!" she intimated, "I figured that slag of a mother of yours might have mentioned something!" I bit back my anger.

"Is that all you came here for?" I joked, crossing my arms loosely and bringing one hand up to my face to softly set my chin on, "To insult my family? Don't get me wrong, I understand a good verbal lashing just as much as the next guy, after acting as a nurse to one of those supposed 'concubines,' I figured you might have something more of worth to tell me."

"Is that what you think I was doing?" she said coyly, "Just checking on her? Making sure she was well? Playing nurse?" She was joking, of course, but when she said that last part, she seemed genuinely surprised, "Actually, no. That sounds fun and kinky. I wasn't doing that."

I tilted my head and gave her a dumb look. She returned it with a flirty smile and started trailing her finger up my arm, tickling the skin.

"You should be thanking me right now," she said simply, biting her bottom lip.

"And why is that?" she said. She got serious all of a sudden, and I didn't know whether that was scarier than her sly flirts.

"Because Miia was clinically dead," she said.

"That…" I started, but I couldn't continue. It was like someone had knocked the wind out of me and I stepped back, running my hand through my hair as I tried to not let that statement get the best of me. It wasn't true.

"The only thing the monster governments are interested in is peaceful coexistence," the girl continued, "They would never share any information about our physiology with human governments because if they knew how to fight us efficiently, then our leaders believe that humans will attack us. Does that make sense? Maybe not to you because you live with five of them, are banging three of them, and and have four more hanging on your arm- I still have the scar from that stupid doppelganger whore, by the way -but most humans still view monsters as MONSTERS. If word got out about our weaknesses, there would be a genocide in the streets every day. I mean, you live in the freaking home country for the KKK! Did you think the hatred stopped just because most of the world wants to avoid a major conflict?"

"Shut up!" I yelled at her and slammed my hand on the counter, tearing down the structure entirely from the impact, "You don't know anything! She wasn't dead! Doctors would know something about her condition and would have helped her if there was anything to be concerned about!"

"Do you think lamias are closer to humans or snakes?" she asked calmly.

"Snakes!" I said immediately, then growled, "Humans! They… they're like snakes but…"

I shouted at myself to calm down. My heart rate was rising and I had already broken a major structure in the house. I was so mad that I just couldn't think. When she asked me that question, I acted on impulse and answered without a single ounce of thought, so I needed to calm down. I tried breathing, but I couldn't get a deep breath in. Plus, with this girl looking at me with that pitying face, I was so ready and willing to take her down, to break her, to snap her in half and do… something. I wasn't sure on what that last desire was but my body wanted to act on it.

I paced around the room. My fists were shaking at my sides and I tried to will myself to be still, only to suffer more of that same anger as it told me to jump at this intruder. I could feel her eyes on me. She was watching me like I was her prey that she had just captured, like I was a small animal that she was leading into a trap, and if I was being honest with myself, she was right. I was falling for whatever trick she was playing at.

And I didn't care. I wanted her gone, even if that meant I had to throw her out myself.

"Lamias, just like all monster girls and their male counterparts, have traits of both humans and animals," the girl continued, her voice never raising to a yell.

"I know that," I growled, the pictures on the wall shaking.

"Master?" came Centorea's voice, and I looked up to see a concerned, almost terrified face.

"Honey, if she's bothering you, I will make her leave," Rachnera was next, baring her fangs and playing cat's cradle with some of her webs as she threatened our intruder.

"Darling… your eyes," next was Miia who had crawled out of bed to see what I was freaking out over, leaning on the centaur for support, "What… what happened while I was out?"

I had no idea what she was talking about. My eyes? Yeah, I knew they were gorgeous. What was she getting at? I couldn't possibly fathom why she was so scared until I looked in one of the pictures behind her, seeing my reflection in the glass. My eyes had changed. Before, they were a wolfish gold or silver depending on the light, but now they were replaced with the same sharp crimson like the blood pumping in my ears, my formerly round pupil now a thin slit like a cat's, and the whites surrounding them a faded black.

That was some kind of change. A smirk came to my lips. I liked what I saw. Those were the eyes of someone who could protect those he cared about, someone powerful who could defeat any foe that came his way. A low chuckle escaped my throat. Then, I saw the look of utter fear on Centorea's face as she watched me, even Rachnera matching it when she saw me. Even Miia… I couldn't stand to see them like that and closed my eyes, turning away from the picture.

"Who knew that the cute little boy in that photo would turn out to be just like me? A demon," said a voice in my ear.

I perked up when I heard it. Looking at my reflection one more time, I stared passed the glass to the faces behind it. It was the same picture from Mom and Dad's office. If that didn't sour my mood enough, I slowly realized that the voice in my head didn't belong to anyone I had heard before. It wasn't either of my parents, the girls, my friends or their homestays, Smith, the MON Squad, and by no means did it belong to the girl sitting behind me. It was purely in my mind, echoing off the walls of my skull. Maybe I was hallucinating, but the energy from that tone, the pure malice and evil behind it made me think otherwise. I had felt that darkness before. It was the same type of darkness that had made me accept Miia into my household, made me charge into danger every chance I got, fight off Centorea's attackers, and even what made me accept how much of a pervert I was as if there was no other option for me.

I was trash. I was the lowest of the low, and just to prove I was a garbage human, God saw fit to turn me into a monster. I really was one, wasn't I? That voice just knew it far before I did.

"Darling," said a firm voice.

Nothing was going right. Miia had left me, Mero had nearly destroyed my family, my Mom and Dad had been lying to me my whole life… How could I ever take care of anyone if I couldn't even get my own life together?

"Darling," it repeated.

I shouldn't bring Miia and the others down with me. They didn't deserve someone like me.

"Darling!" Miia finally snapped and brought me out of my own thoughts. Her hand gently pressed against my cheek, brushing against the burning streams of tears that had dried against them, but held me close so I was forced to look at her. Her smile had returned. It wasn't lascivious, excited, nor energetic in anyway like normal. This one was more pure.

"It's OK," she said simply.

At that point, I couldn't help a smile from crossing my own lips either. Miia had been in a coma for nearly a year only to wake up to drama and conflict, something that she by no means deserved, but she didn't let that bind her. She saw me struggling, but didn't know why. Regardless of anything else, she decided to help me. She had maybe been awake for thirty minutes, barely able to move and having to use the others to get out of her room, and before she had even bothered to get to her full strength, she put everything aside just to help me.

I had no choice at this point. I had to make her my wife. If she was really willing to choose me over her own medical stability, then she was the very definition of a keeper. Silently, I turned to the girl behind me who had a very sincere look as if she would rather have prefered to be somewhere else at the moment.

"You really are an incubus," she proclaimed, clicking her tongue, "For a second, I didn't believe it, but only one of your kind could have withstood my mind control."

"Darling, what is she talking about?" Miia asked, her tail wrapping around me protectively. On instinct, I pushed her away from me, completely removing her constriction and stepping out of her like she wasn't even an obstacle much to her surprise.

"Cerea, Rachnee," I stated, the feeling of power from when this conversation had started returning to me, "Get Miia up to speed. I'll see our guests out."

I heard them scurrying off. Miia tried to stay, complaining to the two of them about wanting to make sure I was safe but they managed to pull her away thanks to how weak she was after her coma. When they were safely out of harm's way, I put on the friendliest of smiles and gestured to the door.

"After you," I ordered.

The girl stepped out onto the porch and turned back to see if I was following her, but I had already sidestepped her and was walking backwards towards the street, my hands in my pockets and my gaze following her movements very carefully. It was the middle of the day, so no one was around since the kids were at school and parents were at work, and with our street being kind of secluded anyway, this was perfect. Looking back on it, I had only fought for fun or to defend myself; never for the right reasons, but now? I felt like I was doing something worthwhile.

"So, before we begin, tell me something," I offered, and she gestured for me to continue, "You said you fought Doppel, right? I'm assuming you're the Fallen Angel who tried to kill me."

"Yep," she said.

"And were you trying to kill me or rebel against the ICEP like Agent Smith suggested?"

"No, we were trying to kill you," she answered, "We've been watching you for awhile, ever since you rescued Miia from drowning, which by the way, is the only thing that kept her alive in case you were wondering. The water was cold and deep enough to freeze a poikilotherm to death, but since you got her out of the water as fast as you did, it just turned her into a vegetable."

"That raises two more questions," I said.

"You've earned the right to ask them," she said, "You not only fought off Lala, but you treated me as a guest, fought off my mind control, and fulfill every aspect of an incubus to a T. Ask me anything."

"I'll ask the easy one first then," I said, my voice dropping to a growl, "How did you save Miia?"

"Oh, so you figured it out!" the fallen angel said with a grin, pointing to her now glowing eyes, "The same way I made you hallucinate her face and that voice in your head is the same way I tried to mind control you. You know how demons are a big thing in human religion? Well, it's for a good reason. All monsters have a small amount of magic within them, but what you call the theory of evolution and natural selection gave some species more magical abilities than others, and that gave fallen angels the abilities to create illusions. All we have to do is focus on a weak point."

I looked down on the ground, laughing sourly as I shook my head.

"So, you focused on my depression?" I asked the obvious question.

"Yes I did!" she said cheerily, "It helped that you've never told anyone about it! What was your second question?"

"Being an incubus," I said, "You already know I don't know anything about it, so I want you tell me a little more about it."

I noticed how her demeanor completely changed at that, giving off a totally different energy than before. Any amount of sass she had was gone.

"I can't tell you about that," she said.

"Then, tell me what you can," I snapped.

"Fine," she sighed, "You know I said we had been watching you? And how incubi are inherently demons? You started giving off a very noticeable energy that we picked up on, so we started paying closer attention to you and noticed how you were able to do things that went beyond human physical ability which made our Boss decide to test you. She knew you were friends with that monster girl task force that Agent Smith works with, so she figured that if you could survive an attack against the three of us, then maybe your energy wasn't just oddly enticing. Maybe you were actually an incubus."

"What even is an incubus?" I hissed, getting tired of this back and forth.

"Simply put, it's a human turned into a monster in a very specific way. They have powers equal to that of the strongest liminal champions, so we know you're an incubus because of your physical abilities and your magical ones like your quick healing ability and how you can completely dispel my illusions." My shoulders tensed up when she dipped her head forward, her jet black wings extending behind her, but she still had one more thing to say before she did anything else. "If you want anymore details, ask your mother!"

Then, she charged me. When she got into range to attack me, the first thing I did was put my hands up to block a punch or a kick, but I wasn't expecting her wings to slap me a few times. I went flying into my neighbor's car, totalling it out with a big dent. She dashed towards me again, feinting with her wings then pivoting to kick me, but I blocked it, sending a shockwave out from the impact and cracking the pavement beneath us.

We started boxing from there, trying to gain ground on the other. She threw one punch after the other, trying to find the angles to get behind my guard, but I could spot her weakness from there. She didn't clinch. I wrapped my arms around her and whipped her around, pinning her against the car and sending a knee into her stomach. She grunted so hard that spit flew out of her mouth. I threw a few punches to test her, and she blocked them easily, so I switched to my elbows and hit her hard enough to cut her, blood spilling down her face, forehead and chin.

Then, I grabbed one side of her head and tripped her. Instinctively, I straddled her waist and went to throw a punch, but then she opened her eyes and flashed me with a bright light coming from them. Next thing I knew, I was airborne, falling straight down to the ground. The girl had my arm and was ready to slam me down, but I rolled around her and grabbed her leg with basic, albeit airborne jiu jitsu and made her hit the ground face first.

She hit me away with her wings again and charged me once more. She tried hitting me with her wings over and over, bringing up her legs sometimes, and I had no idea how to guard against it. I needed to think. I moved in and tried to clinch her up again, but she was expecting it and got me in my stomach, sending another shockwave out.

That should have hurt more than it did. I took the hit like a champ and looked up at her, feeling the fires of Hell roar within me and I saw the fear in her eyes. I growled at her. The sound that came out of my throat was guttural and inhuman, and it doubled down on the force from her last strike.

"Please don't hurt me…" she muttered.

"Die," my inhuman voice snarled.

I grabbed her head and slammed it into my knee. Blood started spilling from her face and onto my jeans as she fell back onto the ground. The blood didn't dry immediately, so as she scuttled away in fear, I wiped the fluid up in my finger and tasted it. I spat it out almost immediately.

"So, that was stupid," I groaned. I was trying to be cool and intimidating while testing out to see if devouring blood would do anything for my monstrous half, but evidently, the only thing it did was put a bad taste in my mouth. Apparently, I wouldn't belong in Riverdale.

I began storming over to the girl. She got back up and tried to fight me again, but when I got inside the reach of her wings one more time, she wasn't able to land a hit. I blocked and parried everything. I pushed her away, flipped her over, treated her like a punching bag, and after I fight had lasted several minutes, the neighborhood looked like a long abandoned dystopian battlefield.

She wasn't down and she wasn't trying to run. She held her ground. She was battered, bruised, blood trailing down half of her body and had several broken bones, but she was still willing to fight. How could I possibly deny her?

"You aren't giving up?" I offered.

"No!" she claimed.

"Why are we even fighting?" I asked flatly.

"Orders, innit?" she spat, "The Demon Queen told me to do this and I will not go back to her until I complete my mission!" I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"You know why I don't like that answer?" I said, stalking towards her one last time, "It's because orders don't justify evil. Just because you're a soldier, or a knight, or a fallen angel, doing what you're told regardless of who it's coming from doesn't make your actions any more justified than mine. You're still trying to kill an innocent man, and you know what else? It's also turned you into an overripe avocado. You're queen led you wrong, babe. Do you know what's going to happen to you now? No matter what you do, no matter what you say or who comes to save you, you are going to die here, and all because you had to follow orders."

"You… you wouldn't… actually kill me, right?" she stammered, a hopeful but scarlet smile coming to her.

"Oh, please. You saw what was in my head," I said with a cheery grin, "I don't know if it's because of the depression, the loneliness, the overwhelming despair, or maybe if I'm just that screwed up in the head, but you know full well I'm more than willing to kill someone who I deem as a threat to my family."

After that long winded speech, I finally reached her. She was much smaller than me at this point, having to hunch over to keep herself from falling to the ground, and yet her eyes were still filled with that crazy defiance even though she didn't do anything to hold me off. Maybe she didn't have the energy. Maybe she didn't even have the will to fight me any longer and had given up, allowing me to reach out and grab her throat if I wanted to.

Then, I leaned forward and got in her face. I showed her a coy grin and flicked her forehead affectionately the same way I would have done to any of my girls.

"Just kidding!" I said happily.

"Wha- but- why- what?! Ugh…" she fell to her knees and stayed there for awhile, the relief flooding over her entire body.

"I couldn't kill anybody," I said, dropping to the ground with her with just as much physical exhaustion as emotional, "I don't like conflict, you know? I've been training to fight since birth thanks to my mom, and I know how to do it if it ever becomes unavoidable, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I hate conflict, you know? I love to fight when it's for fun, but even though you're doing everything you possibly can to end my life, I just want it to end." She looked up at me and smiled.

"You're sweet," she said, "Are you sure you don't want to kill me?"

"Yep," I said.

"What makes you think I won't come back and finish you off?"

"Feel free."

She blinked at me in confusion a few times, her expression trying to decide if it wanted to be angry or dumbfounded, then finally decided on surrender. She gave me that psychotic laugh before saying one more thing.

"I think I can see why those girls fell in love with you," she said at almost a whisper, "I guess I'll go home. If I got beat this bad, I don't think I'll get into too much bloody trouble."

"Don't be a stranger," I offered.

I watched her stand up and walk away. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at me, giving me a polite wave as a ring of fire enveloped her body, leaving a floom of dust where she was just standing. I guessed that she returned to Hell. More exhausted now that the immediate threat had gone, I fell onto my back and closed my eyes, trying to fall asleep. After a fight that incredible, there was no way I wasn't going to sleep for days, but the shadows behind my eyelids grew darker as someone decided to stand over me and wake me up.

"Centorea texted me that Miia was awake," said my mom, and I could hear my dad trying to wrangle Papi and Suu in the background.

"Master, what's wrong?! Why do you look like you just got beat up?!" Papi yelled.

"Master, please don't be hurt!" Suu chimed in.

I felt the two crash into me and looked up to see them curling into my sides. On my left was Papi who had her hair styled into a thick french braid with flowers in it, and on my right was Suu who hadn't finished dissolving a combo meal from the local fast food chain, paper wrapper and all. They checked me over. Papi pecked at my clothes and made sure they didn't stick to my body, then used her wings to guide Suu as her slime body swallowed all of mine, healing my wounds.

"Over here too, Suu!" Papi said, "He uses his legs a lot when he fights."

"All of his pain is in his face," Suu explained, "The rest of his body is just sore."

"So this is new," I mentioned, looking up at my mom, "Do slimes have medical properties?"

"How should I know?" she shrugged off.

"Hey, Suu? Can you hand me the slip of paper in my back pocket?" I asked and in a few seconds, I pushed my arm out of Suu's body with the photo in my hand, my mom's eyes widening when she saw and snatching it out of my hand, "You know, you really seem to have evened out since your Slayer days."

"I remember this," my mom said nostalgically, "This was when my troop had to fight off an orc horde in the alps."

"I understand why you've been so secretive on your military career," I said tightly, "You were in the army the minute you turned eighteen, and the existence of monster girls was only revealed to the public about four or five years ago."

"That was the war that started the peace talks," she explained, placing the picture very gingerly in her purse, "Your coordinator, Kuroko Smith and I, led the final assault on the elf queen's palace at the very end of the war, capturing her and forcing all of her forces who hadn't surrendered already to do so."

"Mom?" I said tightly, "I need to ask you something."

"Just one thing?" she teased, her eyes starting to glisten with a thousand yard stare.

"Many things, but all coming from one," I said, "What's an incubus?"

I might have told my mom that I only had three hours to live with the shock on her face. I didn't know that the question would hold that much weight to her, only asking it on the passing mention of my mom from the fallen angel girl, but she started to look at me with the same face that you would give someone who you knew was going to die, like you were already planning their funeral. Given how much my mom probably knew about this topic, for all I knew, she might have been.

The smile fell from her face again. My father stepped over and gave her a supportive look, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and linking his fingers with hers when she rose them to meet him. Then, he looked down to where I was still laying.

"Come inside, Kayo," he ordered, "We have a lot to talk about."

I didn't argue. After all, he was right, and I had no counter to offer. I had questions that needed answering, and since the only woman I knew who could had returned to Hell, my parents were the only people who could answer them for me. We really did have a lot to talk about, and I was prepared for a long conversation.


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

I sunk into the bathtub with a heavy groan, a euphoric feeling of comfort washing over me as the hot water covered my body. As I lied there, my body loosed up, my muscles relaxing. A few times, my joints would pop, and the pain from my fight with the fallen angel came and went in waves, sometimes mildly and sometimes making me grimace, but I was healing. A warm bath with some herbal remedies thrown in, maybe a few candles for aromatherapy, really helped my body fixed itself after a fight.

Really though, it was a bubble bath with low lighting, but who cared? I was in a crap ton of pain after blowing up half the neighborhood, so if I wanted to come down from the greatest fight I ever had with the most effeminate thing possible, I was going to do it.

I started to lose track of time and began to doze off. Now that the adrenaline had worn off and my body was starting to feel healthier, the physical exhaustion was starting to present itself a bit more and was knocking me out. A passing thought about my body pruning up hit me, but then my eyes starting closing. I didn't care. I was just so tired, and needed to sleep.

Then, the water level began to rise, and I heard splashing as something began to wrap around my torso, something familiar but I didn't place it right away. It was smooth, almost scaley. It was tightening around my ribs and my chest, making it far too easy to crush me if it really wanted to, but I was way too lethargic to move or fight it off. Actually, it was kind of comforting. Subconsciously, my body melted into it, reveling in the comfort it provided. Finally, I decided to crack one eye open. Lethargically, I smiled, seeing my first love join me in the bath with her chest dipping strategically beneath the bubbles and her orange hair tied neatly in a bun, watching me carefully as if she was making sure I was still alive or conscious.

"Glad to see you're feeling better. My parents didn't want to get to know you?" I croaked, reaching over and looping my fingers with hers. Miia shook her head.

"I wanted to, but they were the ones who said I should join you," she said with an excited wiggle to her ears. God, I had missed that. However, I gave her a dead look at her suggestion.

"I don't believe you," I said flatly.

"I was surprised too!" Miia defended, "But they said that a hot bath helps activate the body's natural healing abilities, so Mother practically threw me in here."

"Did she not say I was in here?" I teased, not that I cared.

"Even though I wanted to get to know them, I think she knew all I really wanted was you…" she said at a low whisper, pushing some stray hair out of her face embarrassedly.

"Now that? That sounds like them."

We shared a quiet laugh together before settling into a tense silence. I remembered before she fell into her coma that a lapse in the conversation like this wouldn't have been this awkward several months ago, but this wasn't that time anymore. We had been separated for a long time, and the pressure of that was now more apparent than ever. I had no idea what it was like for Miia, if she felt as though she had just woken up from a long nap or if her coma really let her comprehend just how long she was out, but I was a different person now, and Miia could feel that. We used to know how to behave with one another, we used to be two halves of the same whole, but I had to function so long without her that I had forgotten what it was like to be with her.

Silently, Miia shifted her body and moved behind me. As comfortably as she ever had before, she wrapped her arms around my neck and nuzzled against the back of my head, and without even hesitating, I reached up and held onto her wrists. I did miss her. If anyone would question that, I would readily challenge them on that, but all of the thoughts running through my head made this more difficult than it needed to be.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked me.

"Dinner," I joked, glancing up at her with a smirk, "With everyone that's going on, my dad is probably going to go all out with the meal tonight just to make it up to everyone after all the drama. Plus, he's going to want to make a good impression on the love of my life."

"I love you too!" she squealed and tightened her grip on me, making me squeak from the constriction, "But that's not what I meant. I know what happened outside, but you're not tense because of that."

I went silent. My jaw tensed up and I let go of her wrist, my body somewhat slinking away from hers as she noticed I was hiding something. Then, I felt her hands tighten up.

"I sit because of me?" she said, her voice cracking. I panicked and turned around in the bath to face her, knocking some of the water onto the floor.

"Of course not! Don't say that, Miia!" I snapped worriedly, "I'm just… I've missed you, you know? It's been so long since you… since we could… be together. I'm just…"

I bit my lip and turned my head away, finding it difficult to say what was really on my mind and my chest seizing up at the emotional openness of it all. I was never good at saying what I was truly feeling. Nowadays, it even caused me genuine pain to have an emotionally taught conversation like this and tell someone what I truly felt about them or a situation. Gently, Miia placed her fingers to my chin and turned my head back to her.

That smile… that damn, loving smile of hers!

"It's OK," she said, "Take your time, alright?"

Lowly, I dipped my head, my teeth baring from the effort it took to actually say something. Tightly, pulled her into a hug. It wasn't an easy nor affectionate hug, having to force myself to pull her in like that, but I needed to be close to her, and she returned the gesture just as tightly, the warmth of her body, mind, and soul smothering me.

"I didn't know how hard it was to live without you until you were gone," I started, "I've always felt alone even though I've had the best family I could possibly imagine, and I've always wanted someone like you. Someone who I felt truly loved me regardless, was open with me, didn't want anything from me or try to turn me into something. You were… you ARE my first everything. My first love, my first time, the person who truly taught me what love felt like. When you started hibernating… I didn't know what to do. I had to learn to live without you again and it… It was just so hard!"

I hate to say it, but I started crying again and even screaming to match the tears, not out of happiness or out of emotional release but pain. I was hurt. I felt broken and the tears started burning my face as everything I had been hiding from the family, my true feelings for Miia, came out in the open like this. I felt exposed, vulnerable. I felt like a baby fox being hunted by a flock of eagles, like I was in constant danger because I had let down this shield.

And what did Miia do? She held me even closer, one hand scratching my back and the other running its way vigorously through my wet hair, just the way she knew I liked. She was comforting me. The scariest thing about that was that it was working.

"I'm here now," she said soothingly, "I'll never leave you again. Do you understand me? You are my first everything too, just like you said, and I would never, ever want that to end, so I'm not going to do anything to make you hurt like this again." She tightened her grip on me as hard as I ever felt it, crying into my shoulder, screaming into my ear, and thanks to my incubus blood, I was finally able to withstand her full might. "I promise!"

We didn't stay like that for very long. True to our touchy feely natures, Miia and I pulled away just enough to plant a strong kiss on the other's lips. I put my hands around her cheeks and pulled her in forcefully as her arms tightened around my neck and met me with just as much energy, her lips colliding with mine in a whirlpool of passion. The tears that we had both shed mixed with the sweat from the embrace, wetting our lips more than the bath already had. Oddly enough, I had been trying to control my newfound strength for the longest time, but what it took to find the right balance between power and control was my desire to show Miia the love she had shown me since we had met and not want to hurt her. My movements came as naturally as whenever my hand found hers.

Then, she pushed me back into the bath, getting on top of me. Without her lips ever leaving mine with the motion, I laughed at how forceful she was being, only to be shut up by her touch once again. I starting to lose my breath, my lips cramping. It made me toy with the thought that a six-to-twelve month dry spell can leave someone with a lot of backed up lust to deal with, and as much as I wanted to be the one to sate her, I had to push her off.

Unfortunately, her tail didn't come undone from around me. Her hands only pushed me harder against the rim of the tub, her fingers digging into me and threatening to split open my skin, but her eyes showed that she didn't even care. Her eyes were wild, darting all over my body, her breath coming ragged and psychotic.

"Darling, I love you, but do you think we could save this for later?" I asked.

"But… but I want you now!" she whined, her fingers dragging along my chest. I smirked and gave her one last kiss before pushing my way out of her tail and rolling out of the bath.

"Miia, there is nothing I would rather do right now than play at rumpscuttle and clapperdepouch with you," I said with a coy grin, grabbing my tail, "But I don't think you screaming my name from the bathroom after my mother so graciously allowed you in here with me would be a good first impression, do you?"

Miia pouted, but eventually relented and sunk back into the water, or what was left of it. Propping her head on her arms, she didn't stop watching me as I dried off my hair, and when I pulled the towel away from my face to wrap around my waist, I grumbled at the lascivious smirk she was tossing my way, trying not to encourage her.

"I can tell you want me~" she chimed in a melodic tone.

"Oh, don't worry. I know," I passed off, "After that whole debacle it is very difficult to keep this towel around me. At least people will know I'm entering a room three feet before they see my face."

"That's being generous!" she teased.

"You know what?!" I laughed and grabbed the shower nozzle, turning the water on full blast and hosing her down with it.

"Darling, stop it!" Miia giggled and covered her face as her tail began splashing me back.

"Revenge!" I roared.

We kept that up for a few minutes until Centorea began pounding on the door.

"Honestly! You would think that you could have waited at least a few days before you two started with this nonsense, but it's only been half an hour! Try to have some control, will you?!" she shouted.

I gave Miia and evil look. Knowing full well what my intentions were, Miia gave me a mischievous nod. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, I dropped the towel and opened the door, revealing all of my naked glory to the second and equally important love of my life.

"What? Are you jealous or something, Cerea?" I chided, my smile growing just as hard as her blush was.

She was spooked, blinded too much by surprise to take any action until she finally found the courage to gallop away, screaming "I'm sorry" as she tumbled down the stairs and probably punching a hole through the wall with her back half. Rolling my eyes, I closed the door and turned back to Miia with my arms crossed. She was clutching her sides, eyes shut tight, and laughing so hard that she was completely silent with the behavior, her tail flicking every which way. I scoffed, partially at her and a bit at what had just happened.

"She is just too easy, I swear," I mumbled.

"Of course, she is!" Miia said, then splashed a bit of water at my feet, "Go help your dad with dinner. I'll wash up and come join you guys in a minute, OK?"

"Whatever you say, Buttercup," I mused and grabbed a robe before heading to my room for a change of clothes.

(...)

"Now that we've all had our fill, I think it's time we get down to business," my mom said, gathering everyone's attention as Papi and Rachnera gathered up all of the dishes, "But before we begin. Kayo, Miia? Are guys alright?"

Miia and I were sitting on the couch. I was sitting quite comfortably in Miia's lap with her arms draped around me, watching the rest of the family with her head on my shoulder and the rest of her 20 foot snake tail coiling around me. I had my hands lazily propped on the bit of her tail crossing over my legs. I know I should have given my parents more time to get used to Miia before I became this lovey and touchy with her, but frankly, I was way too happy to have her back to really care. Cheerfully, I smiled back up at the Ghirahim family matriarch.

"Yep, we're good, Ma," I said. She stuck her tongue into the side of her cheek, debating whether or not to say something.

"Then… let's begin," she said.

I knew full well that this was making her uncomfortable. Really, I was just waiting to see if she was going to challenge me on it, but thankfully, she was respectful of mine and Miia's wishes, not that that was really surprising.

"You do realize that what we're about to do is incredibly illegal, right Babe?" Smith asked, sitting over in the corner as she, Mono, and Zombina set up a type of radio wave emitter to block out the NSA from listening in on our conversation.

"High treason as a matter of fact," my mom challenged, "But do you really care about that, Ruth?"

Agent Smith gave my mom a dirty look over her sunglasses. I don't know if anyone else caught the dual nicknames they had for each other, resembling one of the greatest baseball players of all time, but I was more focused on the nonchalant way they dealt with each other's attitudes than by their pet names.

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, my mom punched her old friend's shoulder and began passing the photo around that I stole. Smith was conspicuously not meeting anyone's eyes. However, whenever anyone in the room saw what the picture contained, some would gasp, some simply raised their eyebrows, but every single person save for my dad jerked over to where Smith was sitting. When it finally came to Miia, I leaned into her, feeling her body very closely for any change. Her heart, her breathing, or a spasm from her arm for instance. I wanted to see if she was just as surprised from the revelation as I was, but she was almost uncharacteristically calm; just stiff. Slowly, she handed the slip of paper to my mom, but I could feel the tension between the two as my mom's eyes watched Miia's every movement carefully.

Then, my mom walked away from us, slipping the picture into the back pocket of her capris before turning around to all os us one more time. Trying not to be noticed, I turned my head to the MON Squad. They didn't seem too put off by it as the rest of us were, but I figured given they're positions as Agent Smith's elite monster task force, they must have had a type of security clearance that the rest of didn't and probably already knew. In the picture was my mom and Agent Smith standing arm and army next to each other. They were holding up a camera in the 1980s for a selfie, both of them wearing specialized military fatigues with fully automatic rifles strapped over their shoulders, but the attention grabber was what was in the background. Several feet behind them, a group of women wearing the same uniform were piling up corpses of kobolds, lizard girls, and even jackalopes to burn.

Looking up at her, I didn't know if my Mom and Agent Smith were waiting for someone to raise the obvious question or even outright attack them. The MON Squad for one, didn't move, but that wasn't much of a surprise. Rachnera held onto that same stoic face she always wore, but I could see a few subtle ways she would fidget, maybe by wiping away some lint on her hand made skirt or brushing a strand of hair out of her face. Centorea was unnervingly composed. As much as she liked to talk about the honor and glory of the centaur race, she was really proving her warrior spirit now. She didn't back down or show fear.

Miia concerned me, though. She was noticeably tense, tightening her tail around me so hard that I could feel my ribs being crushed, so I patted her tail. Her muscles relaxed only slightly. Reaching behind me, I ran my hands through her hair, feeling her lean into me with the motion and slightly calm herself, but it was only slightly. My Mom took in a deep breath when she saw that were all composed and began pacing.

"In case my son didn't tell you all, I was in a special task force in the military during the 80s called the Slayer Force," she explained, "It was a group of elite soldiers designed specifically to slay monster girls during the last war the United Nations and United Monster Federation waged against each other once we realized that men were at a distinct disadvantage fighting them."

I felt like making a joke about a particular part of the male anatomy, but there was a time and place. I knew what she was talking about, though. Rachnera had already explained it to me the other day that the only way male monsters can be created is through a deeply involved ritual that a monster girl has to enact, so if the war was fought using male soldiers, they would end up being captured and corrupted, making more enemies for the humans. Female soldiers would just be killed and that would be the end of it. That did raise a few questions, though. The first and probably most obvious being that if these wars- plural -were so intense that they would have been all over the news, so why weren't they? I was also concerned with why the human governments allowed an elite group of soldiers to be made up entirely of women and placed these women on the front lines when in the current year, every other special forces unit in the US Military didn't have a single female member that I was aware of, and women were just allowed on the front lines to begin with very recently.

I decided to keep my mouth shut. My mom just began her explanation and was was most likely going to answer these questions anyway if I just listened.

"All throughout human history, humans have always held the upper hand," she continued, "Maybe before the before Jesus, monsters and humans could have openly met on the battlefield, forming alliances with other nations and species to try to destroy the other, but in my lifetime, in my military tenure, the population of the liminal race is so limited in number that many monster races are under threat of dying out."

I felt Miia's tail jerk up and tense around me. I raised my eyebrow and instinctively grabbed her hand as tightly as I could without feeling like I was hurting her. Something about my mom's mention of population numbers hurt her. Were lamias under that risk she mentioned?

"That's the biggest reason why the United Monster Federation made peace with the United Nations and decided to release the existence of monster girls publically," Smith chimed in, "After the foundation of the Slayer Force, they realized that they're only options were to accept the fact that humans had won this centuries long conflict or to die off forever. After that, the ICEP formed. The governments were very careful on what information got released and in what ways, but in addition to trying to keep the peace between liminals and humans, the UN made very strict rules on monster and human cohabitation to control the liminal population. It was an effort to try to prevent another war from breaking out. That's why being romantic in anyway with the girls is punished as harshly as it is, the same as if a host were to attack them. They wanted to wait until a stronger bond between us had been created before we started creating lives together."

The pair were silent, allowing the information to sink in. I looked every which way to every member of the household, and the friends in the MON Squad I had come to know and love, but they didn't have anything to say. However, I thought of another question, and this time, my mouth got ahead of me.

"Hold on, can we go back a sec?" I perked up, making everyone's eyes gather on me which made me gulp nervously, "No offense to either of you, Mom and Agent Smith, but how in the world did humans possibly beat monsters? At one point you made it sound like five thousand years ago, we were all on equal footing with one another and our populations were about at the same amount, but if that were the case, then humans should be extinct by now. If the women in the room are by any means representatives of their species, you can't expect me to believe that humans could fight off a herd of centaurs, a flock of harpies, or an army of ogres."

"Casa-chan," Tio chided me with a sweet look.

"You would think, wouldn't you?" my mom said with a sassy smirk, "The thing is that humans have one distinct advantage over monsters."

"You never give up," Centorea sighed, "Whereas monsters will flee at a strong enough sign of danger. Humans have always defeated monsters because our most primal and most powerful survival instinct is to preserve our genetic line since we can't sire children as easily as humans can, so even though we're genetically stronger than humans, they're inherent drive to succeed is what wins the day."

"So, basically, we win because we're stubborn?" I deadpanned.

"Pretty much," Mom agreed.

"Glad to see your mind still works that fast after so many blows to the head," Smith teased, and I tossed her a dirty look.

"Look, guys," I said, leaning forward on Miia's tail importantly, "I understand that you have much more experience fighting liminals than I hopefully ever will, but you can't expect me to believe that that's the case after what I've been through. Maybe Lala ran when my incubus aura became strong enough for all of the liminals in the area to seek out, but the fallen angel I fought earlier today was dead set on killing me. The only reason she left was because she knew that I outclassed her physically as well as mentally. No matter how strong my fighting spirit was, she wasn't going to run."

"Lala?" Rachnera noted.

"The dullahan," I dismissed, "My point is that neither of them seemed like self preservation was that big of a deal." Smith and my mom exchanged a concerned look.

"Dullahans and fallen angels are demons," Smith stated, "You know that, right?"

"I'm ignorant," I spat, "I'm not an idiot."

"Demons have never taken place in any of the wars human history have recorded," Mom caught up, "Instead, they've played larger roles in human culture as gods or beings of ultimate power that are worshipped thanks to their magic power."

"As far the other United Monster Federation is concerned," Centorea spoke up, "The Demon Kingdom plays no part in liminal politics or culture since they have more or less removed themselves from their kin. Many species don't even consider them monsters, and others don't even think they exist."

"But that doesn't mean their influence can't be discovered in either society," my dad finally said, stepping to the front of the room with an excited look in his eyes, "The Caananites were on example of a society that worshipped a demon and became stronger for it! And many types of liminal species can trace their evolutionary ancestry back to some of the major princes of Hell, if the records are to be believed."

"Papa?" Miia spoke up.

Everyone turned to her, even me as I strained my neck to get a good look at her. She had been silent thus far, and I thought that was because she was too emotionally detached from this conversation to play any role in it, but when I saw her, she seemed more intellectually invested than I gave her credit for. Maybe I was still tense from that morning and read too much into her nervous behaviors?

"Lamias have been said to have come from the Serpent of Eden," she explained, "Same as our subspecies of echidnas and melusine, in case you were wondering."

I remembered the story from the Bible about how Satan took the form of a serpent in the Garden of Eden to fool the first humans into betraying God, but didn't have too much time to dwell on it as my dad flung me out of Miia's arms and took her hands.

"Is that so?!" he sputtered, "I would love to talk more about this with you! You must have so many traditional stories from your home that you would be able to tell me! We must make time for this!" Miia blinked at him, clearly overwhelmed.

"Uh… OK," she muttered. I tapped Dad's shoulders and started ushering him away.

"Down boy!" I admonished him, "You can be a scholar later. Right now, we need a gentleman."

"Kayo," he looked at me angrily. I gave him a sly grin, knowing full well he didn't like his much younger and inexperienced with life son giving him orders, but he sighed and ignored me.

"Let's get back on topic then?" Mom asked with a dry, irritated smile, but then eased up and took my dad's hand, lovingly looking into his eyes and then over to me like a woman who was proud to see the man her son had become, "It's actually how your father and I met, and… had you."

"I'm sorry, what now?" I cleared my throat, blushing heavily. All of the girls made sure to give me crap for it, some shoving me in the shoulder and whistling suggestively, some cackling around me, and others giving me suggestive smile.

"We've told you the story about the research team we were on together, correct?" my dad asked, and I nodded.

"Although, I'm pretty sure that wasn't the complete truth?" I suggested.

"Unfortunately no," Dad's smile fell as he continued, "My team had discovered an ancient shrine in the Amazon dedicated to various named demons throughout almost every religion known to man, all the way from modern Judeo-Christianity and Islam to the ancient witchcraft religions that we no longer have any other records of. When the UN found out about this, they sent the Slayer Force to meet with us, and that's how your mother and I met. She and I were the leaders of our respective units, so we had to work very closely together, and working so closely with someone for a long enough time can create very strong feelings."

"I don't want to hear that!" I screamed, cuing more wolf whistles and laughter.

"We are so sorry for lying to you," Mom insisted, running over and holding her hands together in front of her, "You have to understand that we wanted to tell you the truth about how we fell in love, but that by doing so, we would be revealing the past that humans and monsters have shared, and we are specifically forbidden by law to do so. Telling you this even now is high treason."

I stared at her for several seconds in stunned silence. I wasn't going to lie, I had been furious with her over all of the lies she had told me over the years, especially with everything happening to me, but honestly? I did understand where she was coming from. Really, I just wanted someone to blame, a focus to release all of my anger on because of my transformation.

"It's OK, Mom. I get it," I told her, and tightly pulled her into a hug, "You did what you had to do. I love you, you know?"

My mom returned the hug and took a deep breath, and I knew the quirk well. She was trying not to cry When we pulled away, I returned to Miia who gave me a hug of her own and whispered in my ear how sweet that was before we returned to the task at hand.

"Where this brings us is the important thing- the incubus," Mom continued.

"This is information that only the Slayer Force, your father's research team, and very few select members of the international government know," Smith interjected, checking to make sure the radio wave emitter was still working properly, "Telling you about our military experience or the existence of monster girls wouldn't be enough on its own to charge us with high treason since most humans would think we were crazy and the judicial system could take care of us quietly. This part, though, endangers the entire human race as a whole."

"The plaque we discovered detailed the history of the incubus," Mom explained quickly, her nerves getting the better of her, "Thanks to the truce we currently have with the United Monster Federation, we know that belief in the incubus is considered religion even to the monster races since records of its existence is notoriously vague. Only the Demon Kingdom has any significant proof that even exists, let alone how one is created."

"Why would normal liminals even care, really?" Dad tossed out, "Turning men into monsters of their own race is a very common practice regardless of the species, and every species knows the process to do so. Since incubi are so rare, it's possible that no one cared enough to preserve the information regarding it, so now humans and monsters alike consider the incubus to be nothing more than a myth. Even knowing that the plaque I had discovered detailed a very specific prophecy about the incubus, I thought the same, but now I see the proof here sitting before my eyes."

I gulped back the driest throat I ever had. I knew that I had gained strength, agility, and a healing ability beyond compare to that of normal mortals, and apparently, could even dispel magic, but what my parents were explaining left a lot to sink in. Certain things didn't make sense. Even though they were trying to give me as many answers as possible, telling me everything they thought they knew about my transformation, there was a lot new information to try to sift through. This had even added some new light to information I already had.

"But wait, you're not… So, I might not be an incubus?" I stammered, my mind working overtime to try to understand.

"We didn't say-" my mom started but I interrupted her.

"No, no, no. Listen to me real quick," I said, and I rubbed my temples, taking a few slow, deep breaths to try to gather my thoughts, "Let's run through some options here. I already know that male monsters are created by blood transfusions and jazz, but what if this is just some kind of obscure type of transformation? What if I'm turning into an arachne, or a lamia, or a centaur?"

My mom looked absolutely livid at the confession of how amazing my sex life, but chose not to say anything, suffering in silence. Her face looked as red as Miia's tail. Honestly, I was expecting steam to come out of her ears any moment, but I really felt like talking about this was relevant to the conversation, mom's anger be damned. Giving someone one was a crucial part in the normal transformation. They probably already had considered the possibility that I had been giving the girls a bit of that there the minute I fought Lala the first time. Perhaps, I could have been a bit more tactful about it, but I didn't care at this point.

"Unfortunately, that's not the case," Mono said, but the minute everyone turned to her, she blushed furiously and ducked away.

"What she's trying to say" Doppel finished for her, "Is that the ritual used to create male monsters can't be done any other way. It's been the same for thousands of years, so if there were an easier way to do it, then we'd be doing it, especially if what they say about incubi held any truth to it."

"What do you mean? What do they say?" I asked.

"The incubus is a pretty common story, same as the Seven Day Creation in Christianity," she furthered, wrapping her arms behind her head and staring up at the ceiling, "They're supposed to be almighty heroes or something. Since you can match Tio in a contest of strength and can outrun Cerea, I'm pretty sure you qualify for that much. If any liminal species had a way to create an army of you, then believe me, we would have done that instead of cowering at the hands of humans all the time."

"Doppel," Smith hissed.

"You know it's true," Doppel countered. Smith looked genuinely hurt at the remark, but before she could defend herself, Mom ran over and slapped her.

"Don't you dare talk to my best friend that way," she growled, and for the first time in my life, I saw what my mom was truly like when she got mad, seeing the woman she must have been on the battlefield rise to the surface. Although, now that she had admitted Smith was her best friend, it made sense why their nicknames were "Babe" and "Ruth."

"Mom," I broke in, stepping between them as Doppel bit back the tears in her eyes, breaking eye contact with my mom. Mom stepped back angrily.

"I know. This isn't the war anymore," she sighed, shaking and turning to me, "I couldn't work with liminals anymore after that. I couldn't bring myself to send them to a host family the way Koroko does. To me, it would feel like…" She sighed, fighting back the tears again. "I saw the camps we put them in. For awhile, I even brought them in, knowing what would happen to them." I placed my hand on her shoulder.

"Mom, you don't have to," I told her, and she placed her hand on mine with a far off smile.

"I know, but," she swallowed, "I felt like I could be that person for them, the one that Koroko sends people out to so they can integrate into human society. That term- integrate -is so disgusting to me like we're trying to force them to become like us, but I wanted to bring an end to the killing. I wanted to bring peace." Miia and I shared a look.

"Mama?" Miia asked nervously, "Is that why I was brought to this house? For you to be my host family?"

The words hit me pretty hard. Looking back on it, I never questioned it, but seeing the ICEP make such a grievous mistake as to send a random exchange student to the wrong family was an outlandishly big oversight. Now, I could see how little sense it made. They didn't make any mistake without correcting it, but if Smith had intended to bring Miia to me in the first place… that would make more sense assuming my mom played some role in it. My mom laughed and hugged my dad.

"Yes," she confirmed, "But then your father and I got called away to Antarctica to parley with the southern yetis, and I wasn't here to meet you, but I didn't cancel your homestay. I was hoping Koroko would call me when you arrived so I could sort things out and make Kayo take you in, but you guys took each other immediately, so there was no reason to worry, and now you guys are getting married? I couldn't ask for better."

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. Clearly, this woman and I were of the same bloodline if that seemed like a good idea to her.

"Oh, Kayo and Miia didn't become friends that easily," Smith clarified, "Actually, he lied to me when we first met and tried to trick me into letting Miia stay with him. He didn't even wait for your approval. Frankly, I thought he was just a pervert at first- which he is, judging by his background check -even if he did have your faith in him, but at the very least I know he's not like that now."

"Hey, I wanted her to be happy," I defended, "If I sent her away it would have broken her heart, and would have made the process so much worse for her. I couldn't do that to someone I had just met."

"Kayo," my mom growled dangerously, "Why would you lie to her?"

I didn't try to defend myself. I gave one look to Centorea, to Rachnera, and to Miia, and when I saw their eyes, when I saw the trust they had placed in me and the fear with what was happening, I knew I couldn't lie. They didn't deserve that. Given all that they had been through with me, I knew I needed to be completely honest with them no matter how much it hurt. Sighing heavily, a dark smile on my face, I gathered my courage. Kissing Miia tenderly on the lips, I returned to her lap and turned to face my family as confidently as possible, knowing that I didn't show any amount of confidence on my face.

"I suffer from severe depression. In fact, I'd even call myself suicidal," I explained, seeing the shock on everyone's face, "Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to kill myself. I've tried. Physically speaking, I've never been able to do it. I'm unable to pull the trigger when the gun is in my mouth, down the vodka when the pills are on my tongue, or jump with a rope around, my neck."

"But.. but why?" My mom asked, "Why didn't you tell us this? I've never seen…" I wanted to be sympathetic, I really did, but I defaulted to humor as a defense mechanism.

"Well, let's go through the checklist!" I started with a cocky grin, "I let Miia move into my house even though I had no idea who she was- and I by no means regret it by the way-" I cut in with a peck on her knuckles "-I fought a crap ton of thugs that tried to hurt me and Cerea instead of running away when I really could have. I don't hesitate to jump into a fight with cops. When Lala tried to kill me, I openly challenged her so she wouldn't attack my family, and ultimately, I engage in the most reckless behavior possible without any real reason to. Does that sound like someone who is mentally stable?!"

"Darling…" Miia muttered.

"Honey…" Said Rachnera.

"Master…" Centorea added.

I jumped onto my feet, screaming at the top of my lungs.

"Don't you get it?! I don't care if I live or die!" I shouted, "I will live my life as best I can because I can't end it myself. I will make sure everyone I love is living happily just because they deserve life more than I do. I'm a pervert, I'm violent, and I haven't done anything with my life to benefit the world. If someone kills me, who cares?! That's it! I lose!"

Centorea was the first to run over and slap me. Rachnera was next, tying me up and growling in my ear behind me. Then, Miia wrapped her tail around, curling against my chest. Then, Papi wrapped her wings around me. Suu enveloped me in her slime body. Then, was the entire MON Squad. Then my parents. And even Smith came in and wrapped me in the tightest embrace I could have possibly imagined.

"Don't you see what you've done for us? For Miia?" Miia asked, sobbing against my chest, "I love you! We all love you! How could you possibly say something like that when if you left me… I promised not to leave you again. Don't you know how much it hurts that you won't say the same?"

"I'm not done," I answered, but before anyone could let go, I did my best to hug every single one them at the same time as if they even wanted to leave, "My depression is something I have to deal with everyday. It's a constant obstacle I need to work through to remotely function in my daily life, even making getting out of bed every morning a struggle, but you know what? I can get through it. It's a disease, sure. It's a challenge to live, yeah, but for everyone here? For all of the people who love me and with the life we've all created together? It's worth fighting for for a different reason, not for survival, but for prosperity."

I pushed my way around everyone to get to my mom.

"I think I know what you mean when you said you wanted to end the killing and help even one liminal be happy," I said, "When I fought the fallen angel, I felt a power I never had before. I felt strong, not because of my incubus blood, but because I knew what I was fighting for and had something to return to. I never want to lose that feeling."

Then, I turned to Miia.

"Do you understand me now?" I asked, "Some things are worth fighting for no matter you have to go through to protect it. Whether it's a disease, a physical handicap, a mental disability, or just some jerk who wants to take what I have, I'm never going to destroy what I have. I'm not going to lose you."

With that, I began walking out of the house, everyone too stunned to react right away, but when they did, they charged me and tried to stop me from leaving. Miia wrapped her entire body around me. Centorea and Rachnera crowded me on either side, and my parents stepped in front of me.

"Where do you think you're going?" Mom demanded.

"There's one thing I have to take care of before I can reach that goal I mentioned," I explained, pulling everyone off of me, "I know there's still probably a lot you want to talk, but if I want to know all there is to know about the incubus, I think it's better if I reach the endgame right away instead of spinning our wheels. Honestly, I don't think there's anything you can tell me that she can't."

"Kayo," Smith demanded, she and my mom giving me the darkest looks imaginable as I opened the door and looked back at them, "What are you going to do? Who is she?"

"To answer your questions in reverse order," I said slyly, "The Demon Queen. And I just so happen to know a demon who lives down the street who can introduce me to her."


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The politics of light and dark can be incredibly volatile and confusing. Ever since I had finished my transformation into an incubus, since we made a perch in the front yard for the crows that had been stalking me and planted catnip for the strays that congregated in our backyard, things had been tense in the family. I wasn't safe anywhere in my house without being worried someone would yell at me. At times, it got so bad that I was afraid to even leave my room and would spend days at a time in there hoping to avoid conflict, made easy since my metabolism made it so that I could go a week without food.

My parents, naturally, gave me the worst of it. While Smith and MONster's New Law would arrive on occasion to keep an eye on me, it didn't stop them from constantly shouting me down or trying to throw me out of the house. After that night three months ago when my true nature and Mom's character backstory was revealed to the family, it felt like they were constantly on the cusp of disowning me.

At the very least, the girls had it a bit easier. Rachnera, naturally, found it nearly impossible to keep her claws off me since she and other spiders found the pheromones I had been releasing recently to be irresistible, and with my normal human refractory period having become all but nonexistent since my transformation, I wasn't about to complain. Papi and Suu on the other hand looked like they were giving into their more primal natures, much to mom's dismay. They would both lurk outside the house, Papi hanging out with the crows and gossiping about the local avian drama, while Suu would hunt the bugs trying to get into the house before they even reached the foundation, often times scaring the cats away as well.

Have I ever mentioned that I loved that child?

Then, you have Centorea. I didn't know if it was the animal magnetism or primal aura I had gained in the recent months, but she was more on edge around me. I found it hard to keep eye contact with her since she was always turning away from me with a blazing blush on her cheeks, often times having to canter off into the next room. While she didn't skimp on her knightly duties, it was the most difficult thing in the world to get her to talk to me without nearly collapsing. Most of the time it was annoying since I missed cuddling with her, but if I was being honest, I loved watching her squirm. That much hadn't changed- I was still the same sadist I always was. I'd enjoy it even more, though, if the girl didn't seem scared of me half the time.

However, while the girls were having plenty of fun spending time with the Ultimate Linimal Hero of Legend that I was, Miia had her problems with me, and that was the worst of it. It was the greatest thing in the world when she had woken up and rejoined the family, but ever since, things had been tense. Fortunately, my parents loved her. It was much easier for her to get along with mom than Rachnera because, if it wasn't already the more obvious than the fact that Suu was the most adorable thing on the face of the planet, Miia was perfect wife material. She was cute and cuddly, reveled in embarrassing stories about me from childhood, and both of them shared that same fundamental, motherly part of their personality that made them want to care for their loved ones. It was an instinct they both picked up on, making them kindred souls almost immediately. My mom even managed to stomach Miia's horrifying, homunculi meals somehow until finally deciding to teach the snake how to cook. It took maybe a week, at most, before my mom adopted her and was making plans to head to local magistrate to legally make Miia her daughter.

The problem, though, was that Miia was trying to kill me almost ever night that she could get her hands on me. Whenever Centorea wasn't being tormented by my presence, or Rachnera wasn't jumping my bones, Miia had to have her time with me, wrapping me up in her tail as tight as she could possibly constrict me, melting our bodies so closely that it was impossible to pull us apart. We twisted and turned so close to one another that we didn't even know where she began or where I ended. We loved one another. That much was the most evident thing in the world, and as true to how two snakes show that love, Miia and I held one another until our bodies became one spiritually, and visually seemed to fuse together.

There were two problems with this, though. The first was that this happened almost every night and kept every in the ouse awake at the wee hours of the morning. The second was that even an incubus had trouble keeping up with both her and Rachnera's appetite, my refractory period showing it's almost nonexistent head only when I was pushing myself to the point of death. Of course, I relished every minute of our time together, but even God needed the Seventh Day to rest.

"Honey! You left your protection in my room!" Rachnera shouted, knocking on the door to my room. Miia and I both groaned inwardly without even bothering to pull our lips apart, even though our roommate continued to pester us.

"Oh my God, Rachnee! We're fine and we have plenty! Leave us alone for just a few more minutes! It's my turn with him!" Miia jumped out of bed, holding the sheet close to her chest so she was at least somewhat covered, and slammed open the door to scream in Rachnera's face.

"Guys, I'm not sure if I should be upset because you're treating me like a toy you've made a plan to share, or be incredibly excited for the same reason," I said, my voice muffled in the floor because Miia's tail yanked me out of bed when she went into battle, "In any case, can I at least put pants on if you guys are going to fight?"

The two of them looked at me for a second while I tried to right myself so I could give me the most amused look I could manage. Since Miia had my bedsheets and my clothes were sprawled somewhere between my ceiling fan, computer monitor, and I think my underwear flew out of the window somehow, the very second I turned over, the void between my stomach and my knee was on full mast. I was fully displayed for the two women in my room. As we all stood there in complete silence, a coy smirk crossing my lips while Rachnera began hyperventilating. Her face began to grow red, her mouth gaping open and it looked like she was about to jump me, and while normally I would have welcomed the opportunity for a threesome, but I um… I hadn't figured out how to do that just yet.

That, and Miia had to have her turn, so just before Rachnera could jump into the room and steal me from her, Miia slammed the door closed and pulled me back into the bed with her tail, having to lift me off the ground to do so. When we were comfortable, I sidled my hands up Miia's scaley sides with a small chuckle. For some reason, I couldn't stop laughing at the idea that a giant spider lady who could most likely take over a small town if she ever bothered to do so thirsting so hard for a human boy who hadn't even reached legal drinking age amused me. It was made even worse because Miia was glaring down at me with the cutest pout I had ever seen.

"Darling! Stop laughing!" she whined, shaking her head a bit so her hair splashed over my face.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to offend you," I giggled, "But come one! I'm enjoying my newfound popularity with women." Miia smiled and nuzzled closer to my chest, propping her head on her arm and flashing me a small smile.

"As far as I'm concerned, there's no difference between how you are now than before I fell asleep," she praised, "Well, you last longer and I'm definitely not complaining about that, but you've always been sexy to me."

"I think it lasted a week or two before you decided to act on that tingle between your legs?" I teased, raising an eyebrow.

"Three days," she clarified, "I mean, I wanted you since the first day I arrived here, but it was three days when I snuck into your bed and had my fun with you."

"Want to reenact it?" I asked, remembering full well how she woke me up that night and basically threw herself at me, demanding I kiss her and not really giving me a chance to wake up before I said yes.

Rolling her eyes, Miia leaned in, brushing her hair out of the way as she gently pressed her lips to mine. My hands found their way further around her waist, linking at her lower back and slowly moving downwards while she got comfortable and ran her fingers through my hair. Her tail yet again started curling around my legs, ready to get down to business, but then I got a weird chill down the back of my neck, making me tense up. Narrowly, I peeked one eye open. That's when I saw a familiarly creepy set of appendages crawling on the side of my house just outside of my window.

I didn't even get the chance to curse when Rachnera threw open my window and used a single thick strand of her webbing to throw Miia out of the house, the lamia barely grabbing the comforter to my bed before she began falling. Instinctively, I rolled and snagged my pants from the ceiling before Rachnera could jump onto me. As her legs stabbed into my mattress, she shot me the most lascivious look, licking her lips and getting ready to pounce on me.

"Oh, sure, yeah no, I wasn't spending quality time with my fiance or anything," I said dryly, a challenging smirk on my lips as I pulled on my jeans, "It's not like she's been waiting two days just to get me alone. No~ why would that be a thing?"

"I want you, Honey!" Rachnera mewled, "I'm so ready!"

"And I could use some exercise," I said flatly, "I'm thinking about running to the local church bathroom cause holy crap girl."

That's when she jumped for me and I sprinted downstairs. Somehow, I managed to tie her up in the carpet outside of my room, dazing her just long enough for me to get downstairs where Mom and Centorea were cooking dinner. Climbing my way along the ceiling, I pet Centorea on the head and flicked my mom's shoulder to get their attention while Rachnera stumbled downstairs and collided with my dad who began to chew her out.

Laughing a bit, I reached down and grabbed a serving spoon. Expertly balancing it out, I scooped up a bit of the hummus my mom was making and took a huge bite without dropping a single ounce of it, closing my eyes and smacking my lips together to enjoy the taste.

"It's not bad, Mom," I explained, "Definitely better than last time."

"Thank you, Babydoll!" she beamed proudly, "Sounds like you're having a fun morning, by the way." She nodded over her shoulder to where Rachnera was profusely apologizing to Dad.

"Sorry, did we keep you guys up again last night?" I asked embarrassedly.

"No, ever since we sound-proofed your room, it's been much easier to get a good night's sleep," she explained, "But Kayo, do you really have to do that in our house?"

"I think it's a biological imperative actually," I said, "At least until I can get control over this weird aura thing."

"You might want to work on that," she said flatly.

"Oh, is that right? I can't believe I didn't think of that! How lucky am I to have such an intelligent teacher!" I teased, and she threw a chickpea at me which I caught expertly and threw down my throat. Outside of hummus, I'll admit, it was kind of disgusting.

"Master the stove!" Centorea shouted, and I looked over to see the flames spurting out from under her skillet like the pyrotechnics at a KISS concert, scaring me enough to jump into the living room, rolling as I hit ground level again. Rachnera wasted no time jumping at me and latching her arms around my neck from behind.

"Kayo, I swear to God! If you keep doing this I am going to shove a toaster down your throat!" Mom shouted.

"I'm trying! I promise!" I pleaded, then Centorea cantered into the living room covered in soot, the smoke alarm starting to go off.

"A god dang four slicer!" Mom added.

The door slammed open. Miia had wrapped my bed sheet around her torso like a towel, fire spitting out of her mouth as she stormed into the house and tore Rachnera off of me. The two went at it, breaking every single bit of furniture and caving several holes in the wall as they rolled around one another, but instead of freaking out since it didn't concern him this time, my dad just grabbed his laptop again and sat back down in his chair. For a second, the pair got close to him, but they somehow managed to avoid hitting him.

They still managed to hit the end table next to him, but as if he were used to this whole debacle, he picked up his glass of lemonade and then set it on the floor without even bothering to look up. I glanced over to Centorea a questioning look.

"I'm OK," she said with a smile, then turned to the others with her usual commandeering attitude, "Will you two please stop! You're destroying the house! If you two can't stick to the plan you made with Master, do I have to step in and keep him from you?" At that, I grinned and jumped on Centorea's back, making her yelp.

"That sounds like a great idea!" I cheered and pointed to the front door, "Hi-ho Cerea! Away~!"

"M-Master, what are you doing?!" she gaped.

"I'm taking your advice, stupid!" I admonished, then leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Seriously though, you had better start running before they start paying attention to you. I really could use a break from these two, and I mean, since you brought it up…"

Centorea blinked for a second, then I saw that same confident ward I fell in love come around as she reminded herself of what it meant to be her master's knight. She drew her sword and stood at attention, thrusting her focus to our potential escape route. Without hesitating for a single second, she jumped over the two combatants and began galloping down the street, more than able to save me as the hero I knew she was.

As we left, I realized this had been the first time in three months that I had rode on Centorea's back. It felt good to be back in the saddle again, pun fully intended, but I realized that things were a little off this time. She was tense. Riding on Centorea's back was much easier now that my incubus blood had been awakened, but it didn't take a rancher who had been around horses their whole life to know that my particular mount wasn't in the right state of mind.

"I can't believe I'm actually doing this," Centorea mumbled to herself, "A knight carrying her master off into the great unknown, riding into the sunset away from those that would threaten their peace and their… their love. As they spent each and every evening in one another's arms, the realization that they could only rely on each other began to slowly sink in, into their very cores until they would have no choice than to give into their desires. After days, weeks, or even months of being so close to one another, she would no longer be able to contain her fervor for her master and would confess her feelings for- yip!"

Centorea went silent when I wrapped my arms around her waist and rested my chin on her shoulder. Again, I felt her tense up. Raising an eyebrow, I turned my head slightly to give her a curious look.

"Why'd you stop? I was enjoying that," I complained.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered, slowing down to a trot, "It wasn't my place to lose myself like that."

"I don't mind," I told her, "Your fantasies are really sweet. Although I'd like to hear about where some of those romantic ones lead, if you catch my meaning."

"Master!" she snapped embarrassedly.

"Oh, I like it when you call me that!" I moaned.

Centorea slowed even further to a walking pace and whimpered quietly into her hands. I laughed a bit to myself and threw myself off of her, taking a hold of her hand and feeling her fingers grip my own tightly, but she was still unable to look at me.

"Sorry for this morning," I mentioned, "I'm still trying to get ahold of this… thing about me."

"You musn't feel sorry for this, Master," she told me, "It's my duty as a knight to protect you from anything that would harm you."

"That's not… I mean, yeah, I understand that," I tried, unable to find the words I was really looking to say, "Things have been pretty exciting recently haven't they? First my parents come back home, then Miia wakes up, and then I become the liminal Jesus… It's been a wild ride."

"I've enjoyed it," Centorea said quietly, "I never thought I would find a home like this. When I joined the ICEP, I knew I would have to find someone to devote myself to, but…"

She went silent, her face turning bright red in embarrassment when she realized what she was about to say. Frowning, I pivoted and stopped in front of her. She looked up in surprised, but see the dark scowl I was shooting at her, she broke eye contact one more time and stared at the ground.

"You've been off recently," I said harshly, "Talk. Now. Don't hold anything back, OK?"

"'I'm just worried is all," she explained.

"About?"

"Centaur's can control themselves during the full moon rather well, but your incubus blood acts like a full moon all the time. I've been afraid to be around you because whenever we… we make love, I've made sure not to hurt you, but I don't think I can do that now."

We both stared at one another for awhile. The fresh spring air was cold on my body, and there was a slight breeze that brushed Centorea's hair back as if in slow motion. It was like some kind of trashy romance. Speaking of such terrible fiction, this type of insecurity that she confessed to me, such a dirty, sinful thought from such a pure person, and the harsh conflict between those ideals was really not was expecting. I thought… well, I thought something else, really.

I ended up cackling. I didn't know how else to react to Centorea's bashfulness, that my brain just defaulted to laughing, making Centorea stomp her feet.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh," I gasped, "I promise, I'm trying my best to keep this at face value but I swear. I thought you were going to tell me so much worse!"

Centorea patiently waited for me to catch my breath and get back on my feet before she started trotting back to the house. Jogging up, I sidled next to her and laced my fingers behind my head, trying to give off a more casual vibe to offset her indignance and giving a hard contrast to her tightly crossed arms. Occasionally, I would shoot her a quickly amused look. About half the time, I'd catch her looking at me, and the closer we got to the house, the more and more I would make a funny face trying to make her laugh, and after a bit, I saw her crack a smile.

Finally, I grabbed her hand and gave her a quick kiss to her knuckle. This time, she rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away from me, only to pull me into a hug without even thinking about it. I sighed and wrapped an arm around her.

"Laughing was rude," I said boldly, "I really am sorry. You shouldn't think that I'm just going to treat your worries like it's not serious whenever you tell me them, so I really am sorry. I should give you a more serious response."

"It's- It's OK, Master," she said nervously, "You don't have to treat me any differently." I gave her a sharp look.

"Alright then!" I griped, "I'm actually pretty glad that you told me you were scared to have sex with me because the alternative was much scarier to me."

"What did you think it was?" Centorea asked quietly. I gritted my teeth and tightened my grip on her hand.

"I'm going to be honest with you, and you can feel free to slap me, OK? I know it's stupid," I started.

"No," she said tritely, sending a chill down my spine.

"I thought I hurt you somehow," I explained, having to almost force the words out, "For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why you didn't want anything to do with me recently outside of what would be required for a borderline servant, so I just defaulted to what I know and masked my confusion and pain with humor. I thought you were about to tell me off. If nothing else, I was just relieved that you being so weird for so long was simple as going to the store and getting a back brace."

Centorea blinked at me for a second.

"What does that-?" she started.

"Meaning, I'm going to get a back brace so you feel more comfortable riding me much in the same way I like riding you!" I flashed her a stupid grin with that remark, and instead of acting nervous or shy, she laughed this time and playfully bumped me, knocking me to the other side of the street for a second, but I righted myself and grabbed her hand again easily enough.

"If there was a real problem, I would have let you know," she said.

"Yeah, I know that now," I groaned, "It's just hard keeping those thoughts away sometimes, and if I don't do anything to fix them, then they're just going to persist. I don't like conflict. You saw how I handled Miia's coma and the tension that came after I was in the hospital. I pretty much avoid situations like that as best I can. If there's a problem I can fix by punching it, then it's much easier to handle since a quick fight isn't that big of a deal, but emotions are terrifying. Opening yourself up like this creates potential for internal pain, and guilt or sadness isn't something that can be fixed with a swift kick to the face."

I didn't even know when I started rambling, but when I did, I stopped in the middle of my explanation and put on a falsely confident smile. Turning to Centorea, I wanted to make a joke. It would have been so easy to defuse the situation with a simple innuendo, but I was already on a role and wasn't about to stop now.

"You're the best knight I could have ever asked for, you know that?" I told her. Her ears flickered and she gave me a bright smile.

"What do you mean?" she asked excitedly.

"You protect me from anything that would attempt to hurt me really well," I explained, "Even if it's myself. Do you think I would show this side of me to the others? I love Miia and Rachnera more than life itself, and I don't mean my own life which you know I hold with very little esteem, and while I do rely on them for things like this, it's easier to come to them for physical endearment, or if I need someone to help me on the right track. You, though? You're just… Oh, you know what I mean."

I finally gave up trying to say what I was feeling, but Centorea knew what I meant and didn't push the subject any further, only turning to me and giving a tender kiss to my lips, pulling my chin up slightly with my finger tips. She was someone who I could always go to for emotional support. If I wanted to be trashy about it, I could call her a dumpster for my emotional baggage, but that would demean what she really means to me. Instead, I'll just say that I know I can always come to her if I ever need to vent, because that's really the long and short of what I was trying so hard to say in the first place.

We finally made it back to the house after several more minutes of walking. Rachnera was busy using her webs to try and fix whatever pieces of furniture or bits of the wall she and Miia broke, whereas my loving future wife was happily helping my mother scrub down the kitchen after the fire I started. When Centorea and I stepped in the door, everyone greeted 4us warmly. I was on edge at first, but it seemed like Mom and Dad had a pretty successful handle on the situation being able to calm down two of the most dangerous extraspecies in existence before they tore the whole building down. Even now, I could still see the red marks on their faces from where Mom must have slapped them.

Papi jumped into my arms when I came in and demanded I play with her. While Suu taste tested the stir fry Mom had started making, I flipped on the Nintendo Wii in the corner, gave my two homebodies a quick peck on their lips, and set up a tennis match, throwing myself into the game. Things seemed easy. Everyone's hormones seemed to have died down, and my aura was back under control considering the lights weren't flickering and no more fires started, and the house had returned back to it's peacefully former self.

"Yo, Rachnee," I tossed out, getting the arachne's attention after just scoring a point in my match with Papi, "The next full moon must be coming up soon, am I right?"

"I would think so," she mused, "Normally, I have better control over myself than that."

"Yeah, now that you mention it, I've been feeling a bit angry lately," Papi chimed in before the next serve, but starting to cry before it happened, "I scared off some of my crow friends!"

"There, there," I chided her, picking her up in my arms. I had to get my practice in being a dad before things really got out of hand. I could only afford so much contraceptive.

"It's coming up on the thirteenth, and your mother and I have decided to get a hotel that night," Dad spoke up, "We don't want any repeats of last month." Miia groaned loudly.

"Papa, it was only one ice cream truck!" she whined.

"That the government had to pay off, as well as all of the ice cream we had to use to cool you five off, and let's not forget the property damage," he continued, then with a mock horrified look on his face, continued, "Poor Napoleon. He will never invade Denmark now!"

He and I both laughed at Miia's expense, remembering how I tricked her into thinking I was hiding out in the ice cream truck parked in my neighbor's driveway and how she punctured the company's logo which was an Aztec-stylized picture of Napoleon Bonaparte's face. It still astounded me that Miia was strong enough to bust through hardened steel so easily like that. What doesn't really surprise me is how, in her addled state, she fell for the trap so easily. All my dad had to do to trick her into breaking into a mobile freezer was tape a sign that read "he's in here" on the side of the truck.

Liminals really were idiots during the full moon. I even managed to tie up Rachnera in her own webs despite the fact that her chitin secretes an oil that makes that otherwise impossible. It's still weird to me that the full moon doesn't affect me the same was as normal liminals though. At worst, my already inhuman strength and dexterity gets a huge power boost, but that doesn't really mean anything at the end of the day since it puts me in literally the exact same position I was in the days leading up to it. At best, though, it helps me wrangle in any other liminals that are going crazy.

Which then try to steal my innocence because- you know -incubus aura.

"It's not this can be helped anymore," I chimed in, "Before my transformation, that time of the month was always as simple as putting everyone to bed an hour earlier than normal, but now that my scent acts as a full moon all on its own, a problem that's only worse during the actual time in question, it's almost impossible for them to stay asleep. At that point, I could just do what normally do every other day-" I was trying to keep the conversation clean "-but even I have my limits."

"We could always put you in a hole every month," Mom added.

"But then the government would learn that he's an incubus," Rachnera pointed out.

"That would bad," Suu said, summing up the idea. Papi followed that.

"I don't want Master to go away," she chirped, "It would be too weird if he's not here with us at night, and if he gets arrested, then that means we all have to go away and I'll never see any of you again." She nuzzled into my neck.

"You finally got it right! Good job, Papi!" My mom praised her and ruffled her hair, making Papi giggle before rushing back to the stove. She had been saying "incested" instead of "arrested" ever since I met her, but my mom has always been a good teacher, so this wasn't too much of surprise.

"You're a beautiful little bean," I said to Papi and hugged her tightly.

"But for real though," Miia spoke up, leaning on the half wall to the kitchen in a grease stained tee my mom must have given her to cover up since I could tell she wasn't wearing anything underneath, "What are we going to do? Mama and Papa can go to a hotel, but if we keep acting up, it will look bad to the ICEP and we could get penalized."

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Everyone else continued the conversation without me while I set Papi down and went to answer it, a persistent tingle hitting the back of my neck, but I couldn't place why. It felt like I was being watched or something. It wasn't that annoying though, so I shrugged it off and opened the door. Then I stood there, dead in my tracks.

"What's up?" I asked the person.

"I have come for your soul once again," she said, holding her scythe at an intimidating angle as her hand darkly posed over her face.

"How you doing, Chuuni Scrub?" I asked, not the least bit afraid of her anymore then shouted back to the kitchen, "Mom, can we have someone stay for dinner?"

"Sure, I've made plenty! Is it Tom?" she tossed back. The dullahan in question looked notably put off by such a response but was doing her best to keep her threatening composure.

"Did- Did you not- Ugh, did you not hear what I said mortal?" she managed, "I have come once again to collect your soul for my master! However, it is only a message I bring-"

"No it's the dullahan from that one time," I ignored her.

"Oh, bring her in! I'll set a place for her!" My mom welcomed her with the same ease that I did.

"OK! Come on in, Love, and don't forget to check your scythe at the door. We don't allow weapons at the table," I told her, and I think she was too thrown off to argue because she graciously did as I asked and took a seat in between Papi and Suu who otherwise paid her no mind.

As we all gathered around the table, I noticed the type of mixed reception she was receiving. My dad was checking her out and making everyone uncomfortable, trying to see if he could see the seam where her detachable head connected to the shoulders as the scientist he was, and overtly excited to have her company, even asking far too personal questions about her anatomy. With Mom rapping his knuckles with a wooden spoon, Miia and Rachnera paid her no mind either. The only thing she got from either of them was the occasional threatening glance, sending a clear message of "if you hurt anyone here, we will end you" which was very well received. The only person at the table who was openly showing any type of negativity towards her was Centorea who kept a malicious glare at her as she took her place next to me. I even noticed that she made it a point to keep her replica sword closeby in case of emergency, rather than leaving it in the umbrella tin by the door like she normally does for dinner.

After saying a quick grace, we all dug in and noticed how the dullahan was eyeballing each of us carefully. She was toying with her food. Every once in awhile, she'd bring something close to her lips, only to set it down, and it wasn't too big of a deal really, but it was annoying me. I couldn't blame her for being cautious around us, but my protective instincts kicked in and made me want to see her leave the table with a full stomach.

"Your name's Lala, right?" I asked.

"You foolish mortal," she proclaimed in her act, "It is dangerous to use the name of a being such as me with such frivolity."

"Yeah, uh huh, cute," I deadpanned, "Is the food too hot for you?" I finally picked up on it. Whenever her facade gets challenged, her eyebrows lift slightly, almost unnoticeably.

"No! No, it's just that… I don't know how to eat this," she admitted. I smiled lightly. Despite our history, I had to admit that she was kind of adorable.

"Yeah, it took me some getting used to myself," I said, poking a bell pepper on my own plate and devouring it, "Just pick anything and do something with it. It's all food. If you don't like peppers or if you're a vegetarian or something, you can eat around that stuff."

I watched closely as she narrowed her black and yellow eyes at the dish before her. She looked nervous, not like she was worried that she was going to be poisoned which is what I would expect if I was in her shoes, but rather, she had the same face that Suu or Papi wore whenever we put a new food in front of them. More Papi than Suu since the latter can absorb anything, really, but the feeling is the same. I watched closely as she stabbed in to a slice of pork, catching her eyes for a second as she looked at me almost for reassurance, then much to my surprise, she dropped her neck scarf and popped it into her mouth.

She yelped and smiled up at me. It lastly only for a second though since her stoic frown came back as her chuuni act returned.

"This offering is pleasing to me for now," she says darkly. Translation: this is good food and I'm surprised that I liked it.

"Glad to hear it, Lala," I say with a smile, "Hey, if you don't mind my asking, how old are you by chance?"

Everyone in the room, Lala included, shot me a warning look but at my lack of any basic courtesy, but it was a thought I felt I needed answered. Lala didn't feel that much. She continued to glare at me, eating her dinner while trying to figure out how her dark persona would respond to my mortal question, but I spoke up before she could think of something.

"Hey, you cut me up with a scythe," I said quickly, "I think I've earned the right to ask a few rude questions."

She nodded and closed her eyes, popping some mashed potatoes into her mouth before wiping her lips and leveling with me.

"I'm 14," she said.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone at the table, spit up whatever was in their mouth, whether it was their drink or a bite of deliciousness. While Centorea tried to stop my dad from choking, rubbing his back as he coughed up the tea he inhaled, Miia was the first to gain her composure enough to speak. She shouted, simple as that. She was the only one who was able to even approach the idea that this brought up.

"How are you 14?! Who has you killing people at that age?!" she stammered.

"It is the job of all dark creatures to obey our Unholy Matron-" Lala started. I slapped my hand on the table, making her jump.

"No," I growled, my eyes flashing crimson, "Enough with the games. Just give us a straight answer."

This was a child. My potential murderer was a child, and this child was going around throwing a scythe at people because some manipulative person told her that it seemed like a good idea. Most of all she was a child. An actual child, not like Papi or Suu who were more or less adults with the mindset of someone half their age, but someone who should still be in middle school. I was still stuck on that idea before I realized that Lala had shrunk in her chair. For a second, I toyed with the idea that I had been too harsh and was trying to find some way to tailor my approach to this situation to be more age appropriate, but she managed to find her courage at the last second.

"The Demon Queen asked me to come here and tell you something is all," Lala said, "You said you wanted to meet with her, right?"

"That's right," I explained, "Did Gloria finally do something about that?"

The night that Mom and Agent Smith had revealed the truth about their past and what they knew about the transformation into an incubus, I went over to Thomas's house and asked his hellhound homestay to get in touch with the queen of al demonoid liminals so I could talk to her. I figured the queen would want to meet with the Monster Messiah, but three months later, I figured she must have given up on me. It was either that, or Gloria never talked to her to begin with. I would have followed up with her, but I didn't want to pay anymore attention to this drama than I had to, and ultimately ignored it because I didn't want anymore conflict than was necessary.

Now, it looks like those efforts into meeting with the leader were paying off. Lucky me.

"We've been watching you ever since she reached out to us," Lala continued, "We've been waiting for just the right time to reach out to you."

"And that means…?" I prodded.

"Our Queen herself said that she won't meet with you, so her daughter sent me here to tell you that she'll be waiting for you at the Park this Friday during the full moon since she's been the one trying to take you to our side this whole time." Lala finished, looking noticeably uncomfortable.

"This Friday?" I clarified.

"Yes."

"Friday the Thirteenth?"

"Yes?"

"During the full moon?"

Lala and I both looked each other in the eyes until it slowly dawned on us the symbolism of the whole ordeal, making us both "oh" cluelessly. Is every dark creature this dramatic? This whole trial with them was really something else. First, I become some kind of monster hero boy. Then, these insane girls choose to attack me because of some weird political, quasi-religious nonsense, and just when I begin to think everything is said and done, when think this has all been brought to a close, now they want to talk? I had enough of this.

I was the incubus, not them, and after all of the pain they had put me through, they could go stuff themselves.

"Lala, you're welcome here anytime you need something to eat, or if you just want to hang out or talk, alright?" I told her with a friendly smile, wanting to keep a 14 year old girl away from these theatrical sociopaths, "But honestly? I'm good."

"I'm sorry?" Lala gasped, blinking curiously, "But don't you want to know more about our history?"

"I do," I admitted, "But frankly, I'm done with this whole thing. I don't know what demons expect from me, or how long it's been since the last incubus came around, but I don't dwell on the past. If I do, bad things start happening to me because I can't stop focusing on what I did wrong, or what I could have done better. Whenever I have to start trying to fulfill a role that I want nothing to do with, something that gets thrust on me without my consent, I ignore it. Seriously, you should have seen my grades in high school."

"Ain't that the truth," Mom noted, and ignored the dirty look I shot her.

"In any case," I continued harshly, "I don't care what kind of rules your Princess thinks I have or what role she thinks I should fill. I'm the only incubus here, and I'm going to handle it my way. If Her Royal Pain in the Ass has anything problem with that, then she can come here herself and say it my face. I'm not giving into this symbolic hooplah."

Everyone's eyes were on Lala as she let my words sink in. Watching me, as if to see if I was serious, I felt absolute chills run down my spine, reminding me that this girl, no matter how young, was still a corpse. Even so, I refused to see her as anything other than a child. At her age, she had no place in her royal family's games, and I was sure that if there were any rules that an incubus should follow, it was to make sure that innocent monsters were treated as innocent.

Finally, Lala got up. She wiped her mouth, gave each of us a nod, and then turned to walk away, grabbing her scythe. Before she stepped out of the door, however, she turned to us one last time and gave us one last chuuni throwaway line.

"Your offering has satisfied me, but I cannot say the same for my Unholy Matron," she states after pulling her scarf up and posing the same way she did as when she arrived for dinner, "I pray that she is as kind to you as you have been to your enemies."

With that, she ran out of the door and slammed it behind her. With that amazing exit stage right, my family all looked around at one another with the same general expression of "what just happened" until Centorea finally broke the stasis by kissing my cheek. I laughed dryly and turned to her. She was giving me this stupidly supportive smile, and I could only roll my eyes at her before turning back to the table where Miia had already picked up her plate and threw it in the sink.

"Thank you for dinner, Mama," she said, grabbing my hand and starting to pull me upstairs, "Darling and I have something we need to take care of. It's important."

"Wrap it before you tap it!" she called back.

"Wait, I want him first!" Rachnera called back.

"I want a turn though!" Centorea called too.

"I want to lay an egg," Papi agreed, freaking me out to no end.

"Suu! Suu!" the pokemon girl claimed excitedly. Miia turned back to all of them for a second, holding me in the air by my neck with her tail.

"Mine! You can have him later!" she snapped.

"Why?" I gurgled. Miia held me to her and gave me a passionate and aggressive kiss, growling as she pulled away for a second.

"You turning down the Demon Queen? Telling the Princess to go screw herself?" Miia growled, "That's hot. That's really, really hot."

"Uh… K," I squeaked, "I'm not getting any sleep tonight, am I?"

Miia just gave me a flirtatious smirk before pulling me back into my room.


	20. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

"Oh my God, Rachnee! Turn off that horrifying song!" I yelled over the kitchen half wall. I gave the woman the dirtiest look I could possibly manage while simultaneously throwing pizza dough over my head, but she continued to look at me with that same laissez-faire look she always has when she feels it necessary to sass me.

"I figured you enjoyed Fridays?" she asked pleasantly, an innocent smile on her face.

"I do, but Rebecca Black's voice is so grating, I could just throw a block of mozzarella in the air to make our spread," I said flatly, "Turn it off. Please."

"But it scares away the monsters," she toyed cutely. I threw the dough in the oven, then got in her face playfully while poking a finger at her.

"You don't get to say that," I said harshly, "And clearly it's not working since Miia is still-"

I heard a boom come from the stove. Naturally, the most reasonable reaction was to front flip over the half wall and attach myself to the ceiling upside down, then glare at Miia while the smoke cleared, revealing a surprised face covered in soot. I waited just for a second to let that sink it before speaking.

"Pasta not working out like you hoped?" I teased, smirking devilishly. She turned to me, teary eyed as she wiped the smudges off her face.

"Help me?" she asked cutely. I rolled my eyes and flipped off the ceiling.

"The pizzas are going to take awhile to cook, so let's start again," I instructed, keeping my voice as gentle as possible.

Since the pot she had just been using was now bending outwards like a funnel, I threw it into the living room for Suu to absorb- just like the other three -and got out a new one, taking the time to fill it with water, and pumping so aura into it so it wouldn't take ten minutes to boil. Once that was set, I made sure Miia was watching as I slowly poured in the penne. As if I had done this a thousand times, and I really had since pasta was always a quick and easy meal growing up before I learned how to really cook, I held the spoon lightly between my fingers and thumb and circled it in the water almost in a figure eight motion, stirring and turning over the noodles. Then, I called Miia over.

Slithering over, she stood next to me, and I calmly placed the spoon in her hand, wrapping one arm around her waist and the other lightly on her forearm. Leaning closely to her, I peeked over her shoulder at the water, noticing she wasn't moving yet. At the same time, I noticed how red her face was and that for a creature that was supposedly cold blooded, her skin was really warm. I chuckled to myself and pushed her hand for her.

"See? Like this? Gently now," I eased, my voice soft, "You don't want the water to spill out and singe the stove top."

"Like…" she gulped, "Like this?"

"Almost. Relax a little bit. Treat it like a bird whose wing you're trying to mend."

"Is it Papi's?" she giggled, and I smiled along with her.

"I said that you're trying to heal," I clarified, "Not one whose wing you're trying to break."

"Then, like this?"

"Yeah, now you're getting!"

I watched for a second slowly turn the pasta over. She tried to copy the same figure eight motion I started her out with, but after awhile she figured out that her wrist was too tense to copy the motion. However, she figured out another method. After a couple minutes, she started scooping some of the penne up and turned back into the water, stirring it in a way that perfectly fit for her. I couldn't hold back my smile at that point.

"You remember what our first kiss was like?" I offered, and she leaned back into me with a quiet giggle.

"Remind me?" she asked.

"You basically threw yourself at me," I started, "You pinned me down and wrapped your tail around me, forcefully pulling me into you regardless of what I was going to say. Granted, I didn't say no, but you were so aggressive in taking what you wanted."

"Darling…" she whined.

"You've really changed since then," I continued, wrapping both my arms around her waist and clinching her in a tight hug, "You always told me you wanted to be the perfect wife and mother. If you had asked me back then, I would have been a little concerned about it, but you've put so much effort into your self improvement that now? Now, I really can't wait."

"D-Darling…" this time her words with moaned with an amorous air.

She leaned her head over and looked into my eyes lovingly. The way she looked at me, moving in even closer and leaning back into my arms, effectively distracted both of us from the meal we were trying to cook, and I found myself moving my lips closer to her own in a familiar motion that had become second nature to me. As we moved closer, our eyes instinctively began to close, our lips parting to receive the greatest feeling that either of us would ever know- each other.

At least, it was going to happen until Rachnera let out an annoying groan.

"Oh, come on!" she roared, "Get a room you two!"

"Cliche," I noted, "Plus, we are in a room."

"Yeah, the kitchen where everyone can see you," she shot back flatly, her six eyes narrowing and turning out the window.

"Aw, are we bugging you?" I teased, pulling Miia around and nomming on her neck to force out a cackle, "Does this make you jealous?"

"Yes! And I think you'd have a little more concern for our feelings than to throw your hands around like that when we're around."

Rachnera crossed her arms indignantly. Her jealousy aside, I cracked a touched smile that she was so open about this with both of us instead of passive aggressively making wry comments about us being perverts. She came a long way since she first moved in.

"I don't think Centorea cares too much," I tossed back, separating from Miia and leaning on the wall opposite my spider girlfriend.

"Of course she does! Don't you Centorea?" Rachnera confidently stated.

We both turned to the other side of the kitchen where a manial, blonde horse's ass was throwing lettuce, kale, and other vegetables in the air, laughing like an archetypal super villain. Various types of leafy greens or other accents fell to the floor in shredded mess. In the background, the mess looked like something that should have been accompanied with an upbeat soundtrack that spoke of nothing but despair, filling a theme of "abandon hope all ye who enter here." Centorea grabbed piece after piece of vegetable from around her, anything within arm's reach, and threw it together. Even though she was almost entirely an herbivore and focused her time and energy on making salads, she had to be at her most dangerous and predatory when making dinner, getting borderline violent whenever she made a mere salad. Seeing her make a vegetable was even worse.

I shrugged and called Papi over from her game, handing her a Flogging Molly CD and asking her to play the song "Drunken Lullabies" since it seemed like the best track to go with this tirade of angry tossing. To be honest, the more I watched her make her vegetable tower structurally sound, the more Centorea's cooking methods intrigued me. It was truly enthralling to watch. Most of the time, she brought the fury of the entire Centaur race into making her dish, and on rare occasion, she would stop her psychotic bellowing and violent rage on the flip of dime to correct a more fine detail. After that, she'd immediately return to serial killer mode and the cycle would begin anew.

"Know what, Rachnee?" I pointed out.

"Yes, Honey?" she replied nervously.

"She scares me."

"Me too."

All of a sudden, I heard a boom come from the stove again and looked over to see the pot that Miia was cooking shooting flames out of it… again.

"Again?!" I shouted, grabbing one of the many, many fire extinguishers I had set up in the kitchen, "How?! It only had water in it! How do you set water on fire?!"

"It was sticking and I heard oil makes that not happen!" Miia matched.

"What kind did you put in?! Motor oil?!"

"Was I not supposed to?!"

Rachnera and I turned to her with the most dumbfounded look possible on our faces.

"No," we both said calmly.

(...)

It was finally the night of the full moon. Admittedly, even though there had been several fires set and Papi ended up laying an egg that Miia tried cooking, it had been a pretty good Friday the Thirteenth. At least no one died.

Know what? The more I thought about that being the standard I set for a good day, the more I realized how low my standards had actually become. Truth be told, however, I was perfectly OK with that.

We had gone to bed early that night considering the effect the full moon had on the girls, and I was cuddled in bed with Miia as we do most nights. Under normal circumstances, though, she would have been in her own room. If there was any risk of her waking up in the middle of the night and jumping my bones, the other girls would notice, all four of them as opposed to the ones I was actually dating, would sense the pheromones and no amount of incubus strength could save me from them. I would die via crushed pelvis and suffocation.

Not that I wouldn't be incredibly into that, but our rule about the girls sleeping in their own bed on this night every month was strict. We never broke it. The fact that I actually invited Miia to cuddle with me should have been enough of a clue that something was going down. Something that was keeping me from even closing my eyes. The only thing that helped me stave off the anxiety that came with waiting for the inevitable pain I was expecting was lovingly stroke Miia's back, the girl curled against my chest. I don't know if she could feel the low beat of my heart or the adrenaline pumping through my mind, but in any case, she wasn't sleeping as peacefully as normal.

I reached over and brushed a strand of hair out of her face, leaning down and kissing her forehead in the process. It helped for a second. She gave a deep sigh and smiled for a second, but then she picked up on the slow and deliberate motion of my fingers, something that was just subtly out of character for me, and her face began cringing again. I couldn't tell if she was having a nightmare or if she was just uncomfortable. In any case, I didn't worry about. I couldn't afford it right now All I wanted to do was hold her, no matter the risk to myself and even if she could tell how scared I was.

I looked up when I heard my door creak open. I knew I locked the door when Miia and I went to bed, and there was no one standing outside of it, plus if any of the other girls were awake, believe me, I'd know.

"Is it that time?" I mumbled.

What did I bother? Of course it was. Casually, I crawled out of Miia's tail, my heart skipping a beat when she grumbled at the loss of my body heat and dove into my pillow, and put on a pair of jeans as quietly as I could. I didn't want to wake anyone.

Sidling out of the door, I walked along the walls so I didn't make the floorboards creak, figuring that it was quieter, careful not to knock into the wall hangings until I came to the living room. Looking around, everything was dark. There was a bit of light shining in the room from the moon and stars, but it was only enough to give off a vague silhouette of furniture and something else. Cautiously, I narrowed my eyes. They had really come after all.

Focusing my energy into my eyes, I somehow activated a type of peculiar night vision as I walked into the living room and dug through the bar cabinet, grabbing a pair of glasses and pouring two shots of my dad's favorite whiskey, and when the drink was ready, I pulled up a chair. Silently, I offered one of the glasses to the void. Taking a sip of my own, I watched carefully as the glass I was holding out disappeared, and the darkness pulled away like a hood to reveal a mess of white hair and bangs over grey, scaly skin and golden eyes. Two horns portrued from this girl's head, turning forwards like a bull. Aside from that, her arms were crossed over her black bodice, her jeans ripped and her steel toed boots matching the ensemble. The most noticeable feature, though, was her spaded tail no thicker than my small finger holding up the drink I gave her.

"I see you were expecting me," she said, pulling into the seat across from me.

"It didn't take a genius to figure out that you wouldn't respond well to my 'shove it' foreign policy," I agreed.

The importance of this conversation wasn't lost on me. Whether she was just another nameless grunt come to test my mettle or the Princess herself come to see what was giving her lackeys so much trouble didn't matter. Whoever she was, she was responsible for the route this conversation took. The rulers of the demon kingdom had placed her in charge of trying to convince me to join their side.

That's exactly why this conversation was so heavy. Even though I could reach across the table and smack her at any moment, this wasn't some playground brawl I could fix with a fight behind the gym and a ten day suspension. This was politics. This went beyond which one of us was the strongest. Even if this did result in violence, the first step would be to send the right message, saying and doing this with intent deliberate in every single act. At best, I could say it was a debate, but that didn't quite sum up the drama properly. No matter how this conversation ended, something big was going to happen, either for my benefit or the harm of those around me, and it was up to me to make sure I walked away as the victor.

I hated problems that I couldn't solve by punching.

"I guess we could start with why you don't want to join your people," the girl started off, linking her fingers in front of her while lifting her tail up for a drink.

"I guess we SHOULD start with a name," I corrected, "Or should I just call you freckles?" The girl gave me a dead expression, the aforementioned beauty marks under her eyes crinkling with the motion.

"Sashenka, Third Princess of the Demon Kingdom," she greeted, holding out her hand to shake.

I stared at her. Pulling my own glass up to my lips deliberately slowly, I maintained eye contact with her, taking a few sips and then releasing it with a succinct "ahh." I guess this confirmed her identity. However, it also raised the question of what she meant when she said she was the "third" princess. Were there others? As if sensing my unease, she grinned maliciously.

"I see," she noted, "So, you're content on refusing me."

"Yep," I agreed. I figured that the less I said, the better. If she was sent to handle negotiations, then she obviously had more practice doing this than I did, so saying less gave her less wiggle room to try and manipulate me.

"And there's nothing I could do to change your mind?" she pressed.

"Nope."

"Nothing at all?"

"Try me?" I asked genuinely, "The only experiences I have with demons have resulted in violence or potential violence. You haven't exactly made a good case for why I should join you."

"But isn't that exactly why you should join us?" she offered. I raised my eyebrow.

"Elaborate?"

"As you told Lala," she simply stated, "You're the only incubus in existence, so you know more about that than we do. If you want to set the example for demons, then the only thing you could do would be to show us how to behave, and you can't exactly do that by ignoring your kind. If you really want to be the hero you claim to be, then you would have to play the part, you see."

She said it like it was obvious. Admittedly, she did have a point about setting an example, and if I really wanted to stop fighting, the best thing I could do was join the side of those who wanted to do me harm.

Did she think I was an idiot?

"Not good enough," I said, "Sorry."

Sashenka blinked at that. For a second, I thought I caught her off guard with my sharp reply, giving her no other option than to push through with her previous tactic, but I should have known better. Instead of backtracking or pushing forward, she smiled again.

"I expected as much," she said almost happily.

"Does that not surprise you?" I asked, and I knew I screwed up.

"Of course not," she confirmed, "You haven't shown any sign of joining us up until this point, so why start now? I don't think any amount of money, women, comfort, or delicious food could sway you to our side."

"I'm sorry, repeat that part?" I noted.

"Oh, that's right," she continued, "Being the ancient hero of the Monster World grants you an automatic lordship in the ranks of the Demon Queen's hierarchy, and as I'm sure you could guess, this comes with plenty of perks, the first of which being enough money that you could retire comfortably on before your 21st birthday, including the ability to pay off any debt you might have."

"I'm listening…" I reassured her even though every ounce of my mind was screaming at me to retreat.

"Then, come the women," she stated next, "Naturally, you'd have an entire horde of liminals of all races bearing down your door to try to get in your pants, but we also have a harem of concubines that you would be free to use at your leisure."

On impulse, I was about to tell her off. Not to dehumanize the girls, but I already had a harem of beautiful women that I shared my bed with pretty much whenever I wanted, and they didn't just share their bodies with me but their hearts as well. I didn't need concubines or groupies. As far as my love life was concerned, I had everything I needed, and everything I would ever want.

I kept my mouth shut, though. I had already dug myself in this whole pretty far, and I didn't want to dig myself in any deeper, so my first instinct was to sit down and stay silent lest I provoke Sashenka any further. I cringed inwardly a bit. Somehow, this conversation had turned from me turning this girl down to her getting the better of me.

"And then, in addition to the fame and the power, I think it goes without saying that you would amass an army of servants as far as the eye could see, waiting on you hand and foot," Sashenka continued to regale of the perks of being the Demon Queen's Champion, "Any need or discomfort you might have in the future will be taken care of easily enough. All you would have to do would be to ring a bell or wave your hand, and a five course meal would be laid before you. Need your pillows fluffed? Done. Your feet rubbed? Done. You would never know pain ever again."

"You're quite the saleswoman," I praised, "But what about my family?"

As if she was expecting this question, she leaned forward. That same evil grin hit her face as she leveled her eyes on me, scanning me up and down as if either checking me out or looking for weakness. Probably both, really.

"What about them?" she said, hitting me dangerously, "Of course, they'd get the same treatment you would. The money, the fame, and the debauchery would be spread equally among you, seeing that they'd be part of the royal family as well. It doesn't make any difference to us. Considering your parents birthed you and those girls upstairs are your lovers, they would be treated as such. What did you expect? That we'd ask you to leave your old life behind? We're monsters! Not kidnappers."

That… I'll admit, that struck home. The only reason I really had for denying the Demon Princess her request to take me over to her side was because any and every demon that I interacted with had in some way put my family in danger. If not that, then I was always under the assumption that they were trying to take me away and brainwash me or something. The thought that they would actually treat me as something other than a useful tool never really crossed my mind.

If what Sashenka was saying was true, then I was just being paranoid. Even if she wasn't being totally honest with me, I would still get to keep Miia, Rachnera, and Centorea in my life. Papi and Suu would still be my daughters kind of. Plus, even my parents would be benefitted from this in some way, whether that meant my mom wouldn't have to break her back trying to be Super Mom or my Dad would get an inside look into liminal culture. It would be their greatest dream. Quite frankly, being waited on hand and foot by a bevy of beauties while snuggling in bed with my girls seemed like an ideal dream to me. If someone asked me to picture Heaven, that wouldn't be too far off from my fantasy.

I looked Sashenka in the eye at that moment. I had the sickening feeling that she could see the gears turning in my head as that stupid, evil smile hadn't once left her face, but by now she had moved her whiskey into her hands, her tail wagging as violently as Miia's does when she's excited. Her gaze just felt… wrong. I couldn't figure out what it was. Every fiber in my body started telling me to run, my muscles tightening up as if they were ready for a fight, but I couldn't stop thinking about how much it would benefit my family to join her. There had to be something I was missing.

Something was hurting my back. It felt like there was this sharp pulsing on my back, slashing down from my shoulders to my waist. My eyes shot open. I think I figured out what I had been missing at that point.

The first thing that happened to me because of this whole incubus thing, before I even knew what was happening to me at the time, the first thing the Demon Queen decided to do was kill me. Now, maybe I could have passed that off to Lala's inexperience or something, but that's a pretty big mistake to make. Perhaps, she was trying to kill me before my transformation had been completed and I became a threat to her rule or something, or threw interspecies politics into wack. Point is, they tried to kill me. You don't try to kill someone if you really want to become their ally no matter how Snafu things get. At this point, now that my transformation into an incubus had actually been completed and I could pose a genuine threat to her Vile Majesty, they would only want me on their side so I didn't turn against them instead.

That's if they didn't even bother trying to kill me once I stepped foot in their territory. Still, now that I had enough strength to give a liminal some kind of challenge in one on one combat, perhaps I could use that. I cleared my head and focused.

"I'm good thanks," I admitted, making Sashenka frown, "I mean, everything you've offered sounds good to me, I can't lie, but there's one thing you didn't count on."

"Yeah, what's that?" she asked, her anger slowly growing on her face and her smile finally dropping, "I simply don't care. Why risk greater success when I'm perfectly happy where I am right now?"

"So, being one of the the greatest demon generals and never wanting for anything doesn't appeal to you?" she pleaded.

"Not really, no," I admitted, "But there is something else that appeals to me instead, and uh… Well, do I need to spell it out?"

I let my eyes travel all over her body. It was purposeful motion to try and send a particular message, but I also took advantage of the situation and took the opportunity to stare at her breasts. She was one of the most attractive women I had ever seen. Given her horns and tail, she couldn't completely pass for human, but if she could, she would have been the most beautiful human woman on the planet. It surprised me I didn't try this sooner.

When she realized that I was propositioning her, her eyes closed and her lips curled into a flattered smirk. Then, she leaned over the table and let her hands trail up my arms.

"If that's what you want, then I'm sure we can work something out," she offered sultrily, her eyes turning a shade of lustful pink.

"Slut," I teased with a blasted grin.

Sashenka stood up and slammed her hands on the table. I guessed she either wasn't expecting such a hypocritical response or took a particular stance on that word when it was directed at her because she looked ready to kill me. Her hair was flowing behind her with the raw magical power she was emitting. I waited patiently for her to calm down, a small smirk appearing as she sat back down in the chair beneath her.

"Well, if we can't convince you to join us, there is something else we can do?" she said stiffly.

"What? Force me?" I played. She looked at me, her eyes flashing violet, as if she had just won our little debate.

"You catch on quick," she said, but I think she was put off with how casually I was taking that threat.

"Before you try that, there is something else you should be concerned with," I said, leaning back into my chair.

"You really don't have any room to argue at this point," she pushed, "I have your house surrounded by dozens of demons ready to follow my command and attack you. Do you really want to risk everyone's safety and pretend like you still hold the advantage?"

"First of all," I start, leaning forward as intimidatingly as possible, "You don't have dozens surrounding my house, you have six, Lala and that angel girl whose name I forget being two of them. Second, you could try to come at us, but if you haven't yet been informed, it's not just me you'd be going up against. Last time you picked a fight with us, it didn't work out in you favor."

This was the only time I saw Sashenka look genuinely surprised. I could see it in her eyes that she knew I wasn't bluffing.

"How did you know?" she stammered.

"About your numbers?" I said with an infantilizing tone, "Simple. Did you not know that I was trained in martial arts since I was a kid? After training long enough, every warrior picks up an instinct that lets us pick up the scent of a fight before it starts, and now that I'm an incubus, it was only a matter of time before I learned to use my aura to pick up on threats in my vicinity."

My voice became eerily calm as I finished my speech. The tone became lower, my words came slower, and even hearing myself, I felt like it was the voice of someone who was truly dangerous. Glaring at the woman before me, my eyes turned a bloody shade of crimson for my final words.

"Did you really think I would make it that easy on you?" I asked, "Pitiful."

She bit back whatever she was about to say next. I could sense the utter fury threatening to boil over and spill into our conversation, but somehow, she managed to keep her composure and not try to kill me despite her fists balling up at her sides. She looked genuinely ready to kill. I think she knew I was ready and waiting for her to make a move, because I saw the familiar appearance of a weakling learning their place.

"I guess that's it then," Sashenka said finally, and started heading for the door, "I'll be leaving now."

"Aw, is that bitch I smell?" I teased, glaring even more at her.

She halted and quick burst of energy blasted through the room before she continued shakily trying to leave. However, I was already on her heels. I jumped out of my seat so I could reach her before she stepped out of the door and slapped my hand on it before she could even try to open it. I was standing right behind her, my breath hitting her neck. Despite being so close, though, she didn't bother attempting to turn around and try to hit me or anything of the sort.

"Don't even try convincing me that this is over," I growled in her ear, "You and I both know that you're just going to come back and try again, and since you know you can't talk me into becoming a Demon Lord or whatever, you're going to try something even more stupid. Do you think I'm an idiot?" She opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off. "Don't answer that. If you really think I am an idiot, then you could try to do that, but then you should know what would happen as a result. I come after you."

"Do you really think I'm scared?" Sashenka laughed, finding true amusement in that.

"You? Definitely not," I agreed, "But I already know that not every demon is at my level, nor are they adults worthy of posing me a true challenge. Knowing that, in the time it takes you to hunt me down and kill me, just how high do you think I can get my body count?"

Sashenka turned to me and pressed her back in the wall. As if moving in to kiss her, I leaned forward, pressing into her personal space until our lips were only inches from one another but there was no real lust or attraction within us. At least, not enough to act on. It was more than clear to both of us that the only reason for this position was to prove just how much we wanted to kill one another.

"You wouldn't even dare," she hissed.

"Are you sure?" I snarled back, "You of all people should know how little I care about your kind and how far I'm willing to go to protect mine. Do you really want to push your luck?"

She grinned. It wasn't as confident as it was previously, but this time, two of her top teeth had extended to a pair of deadly fangs in a last ditch effort to scare me.

"Instead of trying to take you, maybe we should just kill you instead?" she offered, "At this distance, it would be as simple as leaning up to bite your neck."

All I did was offer a lascivious grin for her facade to drop.

"I meant to suck you dry!" she hissed angrily.

My smile grew wider. When she realized that the tone of the conversation had shifted entirely into the realm of perverted, she changed her tone.

"I'm not doing a good job of scaring you, am I?" she asked.

"Not really, no," I confirmed, "But I will make you an offer."

With that, I backed away from her and took a few slow steps backwards, keeping my eyes on her and waiting for her to make a move. All she did was step away from the door now that she had some breathing room.

"Yeah? What do you want? For me to pledge my undying loyalty to you? Or profess my never ending love for you?" she toyed, complete with a playful gesture of folding her hands over her heart and twirling like a lovestruck school girl.

"Know what? I'm going to say yes. That does sound pretty fun," I offered with a laugh, "But that's not what I'm referring to." Sashenka's playful attitude dropped and she crossed her arms with a solid grunt.

"Then, what is it?" she demanded.

"You and me- we fight."

It was the only thing I said, and I announced it with such confidence and a cheeky grin that the only thing the Princess could do was stare at me. If nothing else, I think this was the one thing she hadn't truly planned for. Any idiot would have counted on me trying to fight for my own safety if she bothered attacking me, or figuring out how much back up she had with my supernatural power, but the fact that I challenged her to single combat must have been so crazy and outlandish that she had no idea how to react. She remained silent for almost a full minute.

Then, she started laughing. It wasn't just a small chuckle or a hearty giggle either, but a full blown, mind boggling, panic induced chortle that she would have no hope of controlling until she got it all out. For a second, I was worried that she was going to wake up the girls. Fortunately, I didn't hear or sense anyone wake up, so I could only assume they were out for good. After a few minutes, Sashenka finally shut up long enough to speak.

"Are you sure?" she asked, wiping the tears from her eyes, "I know one of my contingency plans was to force you to come with us and all, but that's because I know I can take you."

"You sure?" I asked, my hands placed sassily on my hips.

"You've been a demon for all of six months, at most," she explained, "I've been a demon for almost five hundred years."

"You look good for your age," I cut in.

"Anyway!" Sashenka implored, "I don't know how tough you think you are, but I'm pretty confident I could take you down if it was just one on one. You would really be better off trying to intimidate me and persuade me to leave you alone rather than beat me up and give me a real reason to. Are you sure this is really what you want to do?"

She dipped her head and glared at me, her eyes sharing the same aggressive shade of red as my own.

"Not quite," I revealed, "There is one other thing."

"Oh, please tell me. This oughta be good!" she said excitedly.

"Two conditions is all it takes," I said, "Naturally, if you win, I'm going to end up going with you to the Demon Realm, and if I win, you have to leave me and my family alone. I think that much is obvious."

"No kidding," she mused slyly, "What else?"

"I think we should spice things up just a bit," I started, giving her a wry smirk, "If I win, then you tell me everything you know about incubi. No messing around or beating around the bush. Once I put in the ground, you have tell me anything and everything your people know about my monster transformation."

"That's all?" she asked, tilting her head to the side amusedly, "How very generous of you. And what about me? What do I get?"

"Whatever you want from me," I offered casually, "Just from me though. Perhaps, you could use another concubine, or a bodyguard, a servant, or maybe even just a swimsuit model in your own harem. You don't even have to take the others with me. If you win, then basically, you get me."

Sashenka looked up excitedly at this, her eyes fluttering as she tried to figure out whether or not I was being serious. After a little bit, she decided to take me at face value.

"Alright, you have a deal," she agreed with a satisfied nod, "Meet me at the nearby park in twenty minutes alone. Arm yourself however you want. Oh, and just you know, I like my eggs medium and my steak rare."

With that, she began walking out the door again, but not before looking back to me with one other thing in mind.

"I had figured the full moon would have dulled your sense even a little bit," she said, "This wasn't how I expected it to work, but I think I can see that it worked just fine anyway."

After she closed the door, I sat in silence and let myself mull over what just happened. I don't think I'd be the only one thinking that I was a complete idiot for how I handled the last bit of the debate, stopping her from walking out of the door and giving her an opportunity to take what she came here for in the first place, but really? It didn't matter. The Demon Realm wasn't part of the Interspecies Coalition, so they weren't bound by the same rules as lamias or centaurs. While that might mean they were under stricter rules than them, and being watched a lot more carefully than their internationally peaceful brethren, it also meant that they were more willing to break the armistice than the others.

Allies could be bartered with. Enemies, however, would take what they wanted no matter what they had to do to get it. The only option for me was to fight my way out and give the Demon Queen a reason to either ignore me completely or be too scared to stand against me, which meant that a fight was all but inevitable. Honestly, the best option was to fight Sashenka, the daughter and apparently right hand of the Demon Queen, and win.

In any case, when I won, I was going to give Rachnera the biggest smooch. If she hadn't put me on edge the past year with her sharp tongue and clever wit, and constantly made me try to keep pace with her as we bantered, I never would have been able to handle Sashenka as well as I had. At the very least, I got Sashenka alone. Little over a year ago, this would have ended much worse.

In any case, I knew I was playing right into her hands. She had no reason to keep her promise to fight me alone, and I had just written a blank check for her to take me down at any time. Not only that, but even an idiot could see that she was hiding something from me. Any negotiation requires that both parties have something to offer the other person, true, but Sashenka also had her own goals and measures she wanted to achieve. I'd be an idiot to think that her monologue about fame and money was entirely honest. This was politics! The political world is pretty much the most extreme example of give and take in existence, and to think that I'd join the demon's side without them having secret plans for me would be foolish at best.

In any case, I knew this would be the toughest fight of my life. The fact that my life was actually at risk was bad enough, but throw that together with the added pressure of the entire human and monster worlds potentially being thrown off balance, and the fact that Sashenka wasn't exaggerating when she said she would make a deadly was even worse. I couldn't lose.

Fortunately, I had just the gear to help me. Storming upstairs, I checked on the girls to make sure they were still asleep and gave them all quick kisses on their forehead before heading into my parents' room. Mom was a Slayer, and I knew that she would never really be able to let go of her past.

Maybe now more so than ever. Slaying was in her blood, her very soul, and in the past three months since we had our talk about her military history, I knew she still had some of her old equipment laying around the house.

Did I mention I loved my mom? Laying right in the center of her and Dad's bed, folded neatly with a few curious laid next to it, was what I had been searching for. To start, I pulled on the jacket. It was long enough to fall to my ankles and made out of the darkest leather I had ever seen, almost as black as tar and feeling as though it was made from the stuff, being hard like armor and yet surprisingly light. Next, was a pair of pistols, one black and one white but both with gold trim. Strapping them both to my thighs, the third and final piece was something that I had begged my parents to get me since I was a child but that always seemed like a far off dream until I got my own money to spend it on. It's something you get anyone in your family unless they have real use for it. To be fair, I guess my mom did when she was my age, and perhaps now I did to since I'm taking it up in her place.

It was a sword. It was your basic, two handed longsword made from a material that I wasn't familiar with but was definitely neither steel nor iron. As I strapped it around my waist, I could feel the energy seeping out from it, as if it was radiating magic that humans wouldn't normally be able to produce, as well as the bloody history attached to the blade, almost being able to hear the souls of all the liminals this sword had slain. It's sheathe was barely able to contain it. In fact, the sheathe alone seemed like it was made out of a material strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast.

Wrapping my hands around the hilt, I could feel even more energy seeping from it. It seemed… hungry. It felt like it was begging to be unleashed upon my enemies, craving their blood spilling along its edge, but as I continued to read and the more scared I became of it, the more the weapon changed. Now it felt… homesick. I could feel the fierce drive it had to protect its owner, its family, and at this point, I couldn't help but draw it at least once.

Standing in the dark room, I was surprised to see that the sword was giving off its own white light. It brightened up the area, shining against my face and radiating with the same loyalty to me that it had earlier, only this time it was a hundred times more potent, feeling like it was almost alive. Against the white backdrop, though, there was a more subtle blue shine dancing across the blade. Squinting so I would be able to see it a bit more easily, I red the blue letters with an odd sense of reverence, the words filling me with a strong confidence that I knew full well I didn't deserve, yet couldn't shake after the magical title escaped my lips.

"Drakmor…" I uttered, then a deadly powerful grin slowly spread across my face as if it was the first smile I had ever truly given, "Let's go knock some heads, yeah?"

Sheathing the sword back into its home, I quietly leapt out of the window and began my march to the final battle, counting my steps as I continued. The moon was full, and larger than I had ever really seen it. It was almost like I was seeing it for the first time, and for all intents and purposes, I guess you could say that I was.

After all, if the incubus was the Hero of All Monsters, then this would be my first real test as one.


	21. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Sashenka wasn't too surprised I showed up to our duel. In fact, I think she was a bit disappointed actually, since the minute I stepped through the trees, her shoulders dropped and she shot me a defeated smile.

She was alone. Rather, she looked like she came alone, but a quick scan of the area and I could sense her six bodyguards from earlier surrounding the area, watching us carefully. It didn't feel like they were going to jump in, though. They were just watching us with curious eyes.

"So, you actually came," Sashenka said tiredly. I was about to respond, but before I did, a rolling lump of white hair rolled across the ground and landed at my feet, a pair of yellow irises staring up at me in the darkness.

"Good evening, Mortal," she said lowly to me.

"Sup, Lala," I greeted with a smile.

Sashenka didn't waste any time running in and soccer kicking Lala's head so hard that I swear I heard her skull snap alongside the branches she was kicked into. I mean, I wasn't too worried about it. If her head detached, then I was pretty sure it could a beating,. Instead, I was more worried about her decapitated body running around trying to find it, tripping over every root and rock in the woods until finally stumbling over her fractured skull. That, and if the park ranger hadn't gone home from work yet, seeing a headless reaper would probably cause a few minor issues.

Sashenka looked up at me with an apologetic look.

"Sorry," she said with a tone that was clearly not sorry.

"Do you treat your servants like that normally?" I tossed out. She gave me her favorite malicious grin.

"Yes! Is that making you rethink this?" she asked playfully.

"I came out to a private location, alone, dressed in my sexiest lingerie," I said, gesturing to myself and placing my offhand gently on my sword, "I'm not leaving without a good whipping."

"Oh! You utter pervert!" Sashenka laughed harshly.

"Really, does this surprise you at this point?" I asked, my joking attitude dropping completely.

"No. Not at all," she admitted, then leveled her purple eyes on me, "But I think I'd like to renegotiate our deal before we begin."

In response, I pulled out one of my guns and pointed it at her chest.

"Hold on! Just hear me out here!" she panicked, throwing her hands out in front of her in surrender.

"Five… four… three…" I started counting down simply to get her to hurry, and she didn't pause for another second.

"I've decided to give you the answers you want before we begin," she said hurriedly.

"And here you thought I was the one giving up," I shot her a smirk and she returned the expression.

"Oh, I'm not giving up. Quite the opposite actually," she said confidently, "I'm actually trying something a bit different. I'm going to give you what you want because once you hear it, you'll have no choice but to give into my demands and come with me. Either that, or you'll know that you'll really have no chance in winning. Either way, it doesn't matter whether I tell you this now or later- you're going to hear it eventually once you get to the Demon Realm, so it doesn't matter whether you hear it now or later."

"Lala," I said simply. Sashenka blinked at hearing this.

"What?"

"You tell me, then when I win our fight, I get Lala. Otherwise, no deal."

Sashenka groaned and stomped her feet several times.

I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes at her.

"You really don't give up, do you?" Sashenka growled, "Why do you even care whether or not she comes with you? I'm giving you what you want now! Why throw something else in the mix?"

"It's like you said," I snapped, "You wanted to renegotiate our deal. If I have nothing to fight for, then I have no reason to stay here. Plus, that dullahan is 14 years old and you treat her like a bag full of sand. If you really want to fight me, then you give me Lala."

I kicked myself for putting it that way. She came here because I wanted to fight her, not the other way around. If I start demanding more than what we already bargained on and treat her like the one who had something to gain-

"Fine," she agreed, "I'll tell you this information, then we fight, and you can have my maidservant as a prize. Happy now?"

What? That was… way too easy.

"Sure, I'm OK with that," I agreed. I was really not OK with that, but I sheathed my gun anyway.

Sashenka smiled with pure satisfaction and began pacing around. She was waiting for a second, tapping her chin like she was figuring out how to word her story, and the whole time I couldn't shake the feeling like she was up to something. Clearly she was up to something, but the problem was that I couldn't feel like I screwed up pretty bad. She had no reason to offer me another prize for defeating her. She was already giving me everything I wanted to know, and even though I was making off with that extra trophy, I was in place to bargain for more. I was the one who set up the fight. I was the only one here who had any real reason to fight. As such, I had no bargaining power whatsoever, so her simply giving away an entire person as a gift raised a lot of red flags to me.

She was planning something and I fell right into it. Great.

"Get on with it, Sachi," I told her impatiently, giving her a fun nickname from my favorite guilty pleasure anime.

"Fine, fine," she relented, "You already know demons have magic, right? Real magic? Not just aura or that misdirection crap you see in Vegas?"

She illustrated this by making ravens sprout from the ground out of the shadows and circle around her. My training told me that this was a type of defense. It immediately made me think that she was stalling for time, to try to set up some kind of trap for me when we started fighting, but it wasn't that simple. That was made clear when the ravens sunk back into the dirt.

"Yeah, something about that seems familiar," I admitted.

"Good. That's the common ground here, so keep that in mind," Sashenka warned, "What you don't know is that male liminals have a significant difference compared to the female ones-" She was about to start going off on scientific tangent, making it seem like she practiced this speech for days or had given it on several occasions, but I caught her off.

"If you're going to give me the birds and the bees about monsters, I already know," I interjected, "Sex. All liminals are singularly female and male monsters are created by having a bunch of sex with a single species until eventually becoming that species, hence the orc terrorist group that was on the news earlier this year. What does that have to do with incubi?" Sashenka made a face like I just the last donut and she wanted it.

"Oh, OK," she said disappointedly, "The difference between you and them is that every monster has some small level of magic in them, not just demons even though we're the only ones who can access it. It's not a lot, but it's enough that after years of having sex with a human slave or her husband, a liminal can turn any human into a member of her species."

I rolled my eyes, getting impatient, and Sashenka didn't take this well, stomping her feet. If she wasn't trying to kill me, I would have thought it was kind of cute.

"Do you want to know your history or not?!" she squeaked.

"I do, but you're boring me. Get on with it," I said sharply. She huffed and rolled her eyes back at me.

"The problem is that no two species have a similar enough genetic base where their magic can reside in the same being at the same time," she continued more frustratedly, "Sure, a human male can be tossed around the same wendigo village for ten years and come out as a wendigo himself, but if that human was having sex with a bunny girl on the side, then…" she held up her hand opened it to mimic an explosion, even giving out a quiet "poof" to accent it.

"They die?" I stated more than asked, pretending to be as bored as possible.

I didn't want to make it seem like I was starting to get invested in what she had o say, but this was getting into territory that even my girls nor Mom and Smith knew about. I hated to admit it, but she had my attention.

"They either explode into a meaty paste, or they shrivel up from the inside out," Sashenka clarified, "Try to think of it like taking a soda and shaking it up until you can't open it without it spilling it's load everywhere."

I chuckled.

"Spare me the childish humor," she pleaded, "The energy of one, two, ten, twenty or even a hundred orcs can all reside in the same person because it's one type of energy occupying one space. Throw a wendigo into that mix, and you've got two types of energies occupying one space, which frankly, isn't enough room. Unlike the one hundred orcs, an orc and a wendigo can't fuse, so a human body trying to contain that funk won't last very long until the human has to die. This process is only hastened when you add even more species."

"Chimeras?" I asked the obvious question, and to my surprise, Sashenka didn't think this one was stupid, handling it calmly like a proper teacher. No, her real reaction came from the disgust of the word itself.

"Ugh, no!" she groaned, shivering tightly, "Those things are… Not what you think they are. They're a product of both human and liminal science, although in different ways, trying to gene splice the physical and mental characteristics of two or more liminals. It's a secular thing. Not a magical one."

"That's…" I stammered, "I feel like there's a lot you're not telling me, and the thought about what you could be leaving out is terrifying."

"It's kind of a black stain on both of our histories, partially because they're products of the Interspecies Wars," Sashenka admitted, "But the surviving chimeras on both the liminal and human sides have actually gathered together into their own tribal society and confederation, so they're not doing too bad. Just like the Demon Realm, they didn't take part in the Interspecies Coalition to join human society."

"Good to know," I agreed honestly, "But if the only successful attempts at combining two or more different species have resulted in either chimeras or death, that raises an obvious question."

"You're wondering why you're not dead," she ever so wittingly deduced.

"Congratulations! You get a cookie!" I mock applauded her, and she glared at me, her eyes flashing red for a second then back to violet.

"There's more than one type of magic," she continued, ignoring my funny joke, "First, there's your basic dark magic that demons are famous for and that every monster possesses like I said, but then you have your light magic which is more… pure? Whatever light magic is doesn't matter. The point is that it comes from the purity of one's soul, and is able to counteract the negative energy present in the transformation. However, that alone isn't enough to stop the transformation or turn someone into an incubus."

She paused and looked at me for a second. Given how this conversation was going, I knew she expected me to interject with something hilarious, but I remained silent just to screw with her a little bit, and I could see she wasn't sure if she could continue or not. I arched my brow to let her know I was listening and she nodded.

"The real cream of the crop," she started off with finality, "Is that the existence of multiple energies in a human body is defused due to the purity of their soul, allowing the energies to mix peacefully and creating something different. Something more. That's where the incubus comes from- it's the spawn of one who can bring both darkness and light to a standstill. The balance between good and evil who is strong yet gentle enough to calm the raging storms within them and become the most powerful being in the monster world."

Sashenka started getting uncontrollably excited.

"Don't you see? This is why we need you!" she hurriedly explained, "The incubus is the greatest hero of all monster kind because they're the only ones who can truly bring peace to the monster world! They're our version of your messiah! You're the Liminal Deliverer, O Great One! With you on our side, all liminal species will not only know peace but will prosper in this world!"

We stood there in silence for a little while. While I let her words sink in, I decided to let her calm down a little bit since it looked like she was about to start hyperventilating, her forehead becoming clammy and her hands shaking, placing a hand over her heart in an attempt to slow herself down. I kept my eyes on her intently though. I wanted her to hear what I had to say after listening to her talk.

Finally, after a few minutes, she looked back up at me with a bright smile, waiting for a response. I just sighed.

"So, basically what you're saying," I started, "Is that I'm an incubus because I have sex with a lot of women and the Power of Friendship?"

"I… Um…" she didn't know what to say.

"Is there anything else to this? Anything at all?" I coaxed.

"I don't know what you expect me to say!" Sashenka spat, "I told you everything our people know about your race! What did you expect? A Chosen One prophecy? It would never be that cliche! The incubus has to be someone who is able to bring peace to multiple races of liminals while still giving into their biological need to mate! You earned this power! It would never be gifted to someone who didn't deserve it!"

"Hey, Sachi?" I growled.

"What?!" she demanded.

Her tail slapping the ground and her eyes flashing a dangerous color as her energy spasmed. Her hands were tense and palm up. For a second, I thought I saw her nails extend into claws and her fangs bared, ready to attack, but she looked so distraught by my reaction to her speech that she didn't see that she left herself wide open. Using my incubus speed at its top level, I dashed forward and punched her in the stomach as hard as I could. She spat up on my wrist. I hit her so hard that I sent her flying a few yards backwards, but her footwork was so strong that she skidded backwards and didn't once lose balance.

Roaring, she looked back up at me. Her face was a mixture of betrayal that I would punch her like that and surprise that I could actually land it, but otherwise, she didn't react. She didn't take a step forward, back, and didn't get into another fighting stance as I stalked towards her. I didn't know what might have caused it, but something about me was terrifying, even to myself. My aura was blazing so strong it became a visible black flame surrounding me, my eyes were showing their usual crimson when I let my power run wild, but there was something else about me, something that I couldn't quite place, that frightened me to my very core.

And I loved every second of it.

"I've made a decision," I announced, both to her and her six bodyguards in the bushes, "I don't care. You can tell me all you want about some kind of destiny and how I earned the right to this power, but the one thing you just can't seem to understand is that I'm my own person. No matter what other incubi did in the past, I'm not going to betray those I care about for some misguided view of the greater good that you think I have a responsibility to fulfill. I'm the incubus here. If you really want me to fulfill this supposed destiny bollocks and bring peace to the liminal races, then I'm going to do it my way. Not yours."

I smirked and stood at the ready in my basic fighting stance, true to my upbringing as a martial artist.

"And I'm going to do that through the Intercultural Exchange Program," I said deathly calm.

Sashenka stammered. She looked around her both this way and that as if trying to figure out if this refusal of my incubus bloodline was some kind of cruel joke or a nightmare.

"How?" she finally asked, "How can you betray your people like that?"

"Because I was a human first!" I shouted and finally charged.

The fight was quick and violent, more than any other fight I had ever been in. It didn't feel like two warriors dueling for the glory of their truths, but rather the carnal rage of two animals destroying their prey. She wanted to kill me. I wanted to die, but I wasn't going to let her be the one to do it since I had people I needed to get back to, and she was right. I did have a responsibility I needed to fulfill. Where she got it wrong, though, was the only responsibility I had was to my family and those who loved me, and I was going to let her know it.

Before I reached her, she threw her hands out at me, reaching for my throat. I put my hands up reflexively, only to get a cut on my cheek from a flash of light. Her tail hit me. It was sharp as a blade and only just missed my eye, so I didn't see the next two punches coming at me soon enough to block. When I got my hands up finally, she grabbed me and threw me to the ground, hard. I hit it so hard that even with my super powered body, it knocked the wind out of me, creating a small crater in the ground.

She didn't let go of my arm. Instead, she raised her tail, ready to strike me down where I lay, but before she could follow through, I pulled out a gun with my free hand and fired at her. That's when I noticed a pair of big, black bat wings sprout from her back and carry her off to the other side of the clearing.

"Horns, a knife tail, and wings?" I groaned, "That's not fair at all."

"I'm sorry, what was it you said? I don't care?" Sashenka played, "Oh, that's right! I don't care!"

I sheathed my gun and charged at her again. She stepped away from me with astonishing footwork and slapped her tail around in front of her to create an extra layer of defense. If she wanted to create distance, fine. I pulled out my gun again and fired a few rounds at her, but she disappeared in a flash of smoke, poofing back into existence right in my blind spot. I was ready. I put up my guard just at the last second to block her roundhouse kick and come up with a kick of my own, sending her flying back into the air and flying around the ring.

I watched her closely. She was circling me, looking for an opening and then dove at me from out of nowhere, gravity giving her an edge. On instinct, I put my gun away again and grabbed her just as she reached me, rolling back and flipping her over onto the ground.

I circled around her and tried to get on top of her, but she moved the minute she was able. Turning to smoke again, she disappeared behind me. I was able to sense her movement just in time to jump away and create distance, but she pressed me. She threw herself at me, boxing me back and keeping me on my toes. I managed to slip her jabs and duck her hooks, but not every time, and she started landing a few hits until I started throwing a few of my own. After slipping a jab, I punched her back and started pushing my advantage. Another jab, a cross, ducking under her counter and hooking her jaw. In close quarters like this, I realized I had the advantage until she finally jumped away again with her wings.

I found an opening. I grabbed my guns and started shooting at her again, and this time a few bullets connected. The only problem? She took the hits. She left herself open long enough for me to attack and create an opening of my own, then she attacked herself. Her tail shot forward across the yard and impaled itself in my stomach.

I went down immediately. No gasping, no grunting, and no signs of pain. I dropped to my knee without a single sound and held the wound, Sashenka's tail still embedded within me. I heard her huff in victory. She had won.

Then, she tried to shorten her tail back to its normal length, pulling it cleanly out of my body. However, much to her surprise, I went with it. My grip tightened on her tail as hard as I could manage and pulled me towards my opponent in a flash. When I reached her, I wrapped my hands around her neck and threw my knee into her face, followed by a combo of elbow strikes until she had to fly off onto a tree branch.

"Ugh… God dang it! How did you…?" she stammered and turned to me, blood dripping down her face, "You should be dead!"

I smirked and wiped the blood dripping down my chin, then tapped the spot on my torso where her tail hit. It should have impaled me. Instead, all it did was create a harmless indent into my mom's long coat. With gear like this, I could see why the Slayer Force was so effective at their job.

"What's the matter?" I teased, "You can't keep up? And you were so confident in your fighting ability only an hour ago!"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" she roared.

Then, without warning, she threw her head back and screamed the most blood curdling scream I had ever heard. It scared me so much that I couldn't even react enough to cover my ears. The only thing I could do was watch in horror as she screamed over and over again, her face contorting in pain and my ears ringing dearly. She was using her magic. It took long enough to activate, but her screaming stunned me plenty to give her the time. Dozens, if not hundreds of ravens sprouted from the ground. They came from the sky, the clouds, the leaves, the trunks of the trees, the rocks, and I could see them coming from God only knew where, and they all dove at me at once.

I didn't have a choice at this point. I drew Drakmor. As soon as the blade began shining across the clearing, I could feel the fear within our audience spike, and the shadow birds that had been coming at me diverted course and refused to get any closer as a group. Sashenka let out one more scream, this time without magic, and began throwing her summons at me one at a time.

It was the first time I had ever used what Centorea taught me in a realistic scenario. Usually, you don't see two people going at it with swords in the 21st century, but then again, only four years ago, the human world didn't know about the existence of monsters, so this didn't come as much of a surprise, and while experience was great, it didn't come without training as well. At that moment, Centorea's sword training was the only thing keeping me alive. I had to move quick, and my footwork was shoddy, but I managed to knock away each bird that got close. I blocked, I slashed, and even threw a thrust here and there, and my defense was flawless. The birds had been surrounding me and were coming at me from all sides at Sashenka's command, but with my incubus ability to sense everything around me, she no longer posed a threat.

She even tried to stab me again, this time at my face, but I countered it just in time. The blood splattering over my face wasn't my own at that point.

Severing someone's limb is one of the most horrifying things I could possibly imagine. It wasn't that it was surprisingly easy for me to do it, which was another issue I would have to deal with, it was how supple the tail was when I cut through it. It felt… comfortable, as if her tail was meant to be severed with a sword. It really felt no different than slicing through butter, only with tendons and blood vessels thrown into the mix. The worst part was that sickening scream she let out, so much different than the anger she was experiencing before. This was hurt. Looking down, I could see the tears spilling from her eyes as she tightly held her stump closely to her chest. She was afraid.

"Help me!" she yelled.

I didn't have time to react. I was already on my face and Drakmor ripped from me before my arms were pulled to either side of me. I tried ripping myself away, but they were too strong. No matter how much of my incubus strength I put into to trying to get free, the fallen angels holding me simply refused to even let up. I couldn't move.

Off to the side, I saw a suit of animated armor try to pick up Drakmor, but his hands began to sizzle and he dropped the thing with a grunt. Sashenka looked over to him, then the sword. I didn't know if she was considering trying to use the sword herself, but clearly, something about it scared her off like it might hurt her. Instead, she pulled a nervous looking Lala over and took her scythe from her. Putting its blade to my throat, she glared at me without any remorse.

"I don't care if its almost midnight!" she snarled, "You cut off my tail! You cut off my beautiful tail so you have to pay!"

She raised the scythe, ready to throw down the final strike until I gave her one final line.

"Ha! Please, you think I'm done yet?" I laughed, "I didn't exactly come here alone!"

There was a single sound to pierce the air before the angels holding me fell over in a pool of their own blood. Lala, the armor, and Sashenka didn't think twice. They all immediately dove for cover while I retrieved Drakmor and ran the opposite direction, watching the others run in terror, but easily get caught off by a friendly looking giant in military grade power armor, and an undead sociopath with a gun fetish. The armor was crushed, Lala was taken down in a hail of bullets that didn't seem to bother too much other than knocking her to the ground- she was still blinking at me -and I watched with no small amount of reverence as Agent Smith, Doppel, and my parents stepped out of the bushes.

"Took you guys long enough," I said.

"We just got your text! We can't be expected to simply teleport halfway across the city, can we?" she asked.

"Pfft, please," I tossed out, "You and I both know you were just waiting for the right opportunity to jump in."

"Can you blame me, though?" she teased, "It's the first time we've ever seen an incubus in action. I had to get something from this." I bumped her fist and then got more serious.

"The Princess mentioned something about waiting until midnight," I stated, "Any ideas what that might mean?"

"I don't know, but midnight is only about ten minutes from now," she said, looking at her watch, "Whatever she's waiting for is going to happen soon."

"How are you going to justify this to your boss's anyway? I'm about one thousand percent positive that they wouldn't be OK with the MON Squad and a terrorist faction going at it like this in the middle of the night."

"Kayo, you just detailed my entire job description," Smith said dryly. Know what? The derelict had a point.

"I see you found my old equipment," Mom noted spitefully, leaning against my dad who was hastily writing notes in his notebook. I knew she was just jealous that I was the one on the front lines instead of her.

"Yeah, it fits me nicely," I said with a huge grin.

"It does suit you, Master," Centorea agreed as she trotted over, her hand over her mouth as a blush struck her face. I smirked and wrapped both of my hands around her free one.

"I wouldn't even be alive right now if it wasn't for you," I praised her. Her blush looked like it was about ready to melt her, her ears flicking wildily on her head. "Granted, if it wasn't for that skill, I wouldn't have gotten into this, so…" She looked up and shot me a smirk.

"When we get home, you and I will have to train some more, won't we?" she offered.

I scowled and turned back to the others. We all stood in a line as Sashenka began laughing confidently, holding her ground despite being outnumbered and outclassed. That's when I noticed it. I had picked up on six energy signatures not counting Sashenka, but counting the animated armor, Lala, and the fallen angels, that was only four. There were still two left. They must be pretty heavy hitters if Sashenka was still treating us like she had any control over the situation.

Scanning the forest a bit closer, I noticed two energy signatures that were much more powerful than the others, and they were both walking towards us with no small amount of rage in their hearts. We all watched as those two warriors stepped into the open, the darkness seeming to wrap around them. I was actually pretty surprised.

They were both small children and couldn't be any older than nine years old. The one on the left was wearing a torn black dress and a black witch's hat, accented with skulls all throughout her ensemble; on her belt, her hat, her shoulders, and the one in her staff had emeralds for eyes. Despite her age, she was the picture perfect poster child for necromancers, even having decaying skin to match. At her side, however, was someone with an opposing RPG paradigm. She was wearing an ornate set of armor, dyed black like the souls of the rest of this cavalcade of demons, and had a sword much bigger than mine in one hand. The wings on her helmet told me enough. If the first one was a basic necromancer, then this girl was a dark valkyrie.

"I'll be leaving now," Sashenka said while hiding behind them, "You guys can play with my friends while I take my leave. Bye now! See you again soon!"

The necromancer wasted no time in summoning walking skeletons and zombies. Unlike Zombina, these ones were the real deal and would stop at nothing to follow their master's orders and kill us all. However, my mom was the first to act. She dove right into the army, pulling out a sword that I didn't even know she had on her, and wiped out over a dozen of them in a matter of seconds, far beyond what Centorea and I were capable of. Before I even knew what happened, piles of bones were piled around her.

Speaking of the Centaur, she galloped forward and met the valkyrie toe to toe, the pair their swords clashing so hard that the ground caved beneath them. Faster than any human would have been able to accomplish, the pair slashed their swords through the air, neither one backing down or giving the other one any ground. Then, taking all of the bone piles Mom had created, the necromancer fused them all together to create a bone golem. In a split second, Tionishia ran at the beast and threw it to the ground, laughing the whole time, and suddenly I got the impression that she isn't used to fighting enemies her size or equal to her strength.

I made a note of that for later.

Next thing to come were several lashes of webbing tying themselves around the valkyrie and the golem, and then whipping around the battlefield, knocking out the skeletons without issue but paying mind not hit my family. She was hiding well. I couldn't see nor sense Rachnera anywhere, but this was clearly her handy work. Only for a second did I see three pairs of glowing red eyes shine through the trees then disappear again to throw more webs out.

"Don't you dare…" she growled in the most guttural, throaty voice, echoing across the leaves, "I will not harm my friends."

It was time for me to move in. I took a step to throw myself into the heart of the battle, ready to draw Drakmor and do some real damage, but I felt a hand on my shoulder and thick tail hold me back by my waist. Looking over my shoulder, I smiled when I saw Miia's face.

"I know you woke up to a real mess after that coma, but I'm real glad you're here," I told her.

"We can leave the battle here to everyone else," she told me harshly, placing both hands tightly on my shoulders, "You know that right?"

"Miia, I… I can't just…" I tried to turn and look over my shoulder at my family fighting for their lives, but Miia turned me back to her.

"Darling, you know that whoever is after you won't stop coming until they are defeated for good!" she implored, "Our family are doing just fine here, but if that girl gets away, she'll just come back!"

I stared at her for a second. She was so stubborn and persistent about this, that I had no choice but to relent. I ended up laughing.

"I taught you well, didn't I?" I teased.

"Yes, you did," she decided.

Without another moment's waiting, she wrapped me up in her tail and dashed through the trees, both of us ready to finish this fight and protect who we loved.


	22. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The forest seemed to stretch on forever. Sashenka's tracks were easy enough to follow, but the further in we went, the more the air around us seemed to thicken and become murky, as if we were wading our way through a swamp. After awhile, I knew we had gone far enough into the woods that we should have landed back into the city. The woods in the park weren't this big, and by no means were they so thick that they could block out any and all traces of urban living, or blot out the sun above it. It was as if the forest had expanded far enough to become its own biome.

Either that, or we weren't in the same woods anymore. I began toying with the thought that Miia and I had somehow faded into a completely alternate plane of existence, and given how odd my life had been in the last year or so, the possibility didn't seem that odd to me. For all I knew, Sashenka might have been slowly dragging us into the Demon Realm. To be fair, the only conclusive evidence that I had for that to be the case was that Miia and I had already been chasing her for a full mile, and the Park in its entirety was barely over half that size.

The more I thought about it, the more it began to feel like Miia and I were walking into a trap.

"Miia, stop for a second," I told her, patting her tail for her to let me down. She pulled up to a stop and wrapped herself around a tree, extending her height a bit to try and both protect herself and get a better view of the land since we were in hostile territory.

"What's wrong Darling?" she asked, "If we don't keep moving…"

"I know. She'll get away and this whole thing will have been for nothing," I agreed, crossing my arms, "But doesn't this situation feel… off to you?" She leaned over and gave me a confused look.

"What do you mean?" she said simply.

"I mean that we're already too far away from the others to get help if something were to happen," I explained, "For all we know, she's got another twenty henchman hiding in the trees surrounding us, and is just leading us into a trap. I don't think… Look, we already know she wants to kill me, and if we give her the advantage that I think she's trying to gain, then this fight won't end how we want."

"Don't you want to end this now? There's no way to guarantee that she'll win if we chase her down!" she pleaded.

"True, but there's also no way to guarantee we'll win either," I continued, "We don't have any information about what we're getting into, which means the cards are completely in her hands." Stepping over to my lover, I gently stroked her cheek. "I would fight legions of demons and other monsters for you and kill anyone who would try to get between us, My Love, but I won't die for you, and I'm not going to let you die for me either. Even if we constantly have to look over our shoulders in the coming months, I'd rather get the chance to continue living my life with you than die in your arms here and now."

Miia sat there and thought for a moment. Turning her head into my hand, she kept her eyes on me, linking her fingers with my own and depressingly biting into my fingers. I knew this wasn't what she wanted either. She was just as adamant as I was about protecting our family, but she knew that if she died here, than what would be the point to it? As much as neither of us wanted to admit, we had been outmatched.

"Alright, fine," she allowed, "Then, let's go back the way we came." Smiling, we began retracing our steps, sprinting to try and get back to the others.

"I love you, you know that?" I shot out.

"I'd hope so," she teased.

"We should hurry," I implored, checking my watch, "We've only got a few more minutes until midnight."

"What happens at midnight?" Miia asked.

"I don't know, but Sashenka mentioned something about it before she tried to kill me, so I'd rather not stick here in this transdimensional space long enough to find out."

Just then, I felt the world around me shrink It hit me as if someone had tied a vice around my head and stopped both me and my partner in our tracks, skidding us to a halt quickly enough to almost make us fall over. Grabbing our heads, we pushed through the headache. Looking around, we could feel a very noticeable change in the feeling of the area, the woods becoming more solid, feeling as though there was some kind of substance in the air and removing that lifeless feel to it from before. Visually, I wasn't sure what it was, but the trails and trees seemed to shorten as well, as if my field of view had changed.

Something was off. Pushing my coat back, I drew one of the guns from its holster and put my back to Miia who was already in an expert fighting stance. We looked around. The world around us was still as we felt several pairs of eyes on us, chills running down our spines as we sensed the presence of a fight.

That's when dozens of monsters of all types began walking out of the trees. All mixes of sizes, colors, and extra body parts littered the area. Some of the monsters surrounding us had wings, tentacles, scaly tails, entire lower halves of animals other than humans that spoke of their nature as liminals, and I thought I recognized some of them. There were harpies, centaurs, dullahans, angels, but there were also many that I had no chance of understanding. Some of them spoke true to the term "Eldritch Horror," making me question H.P. Lovecraft's ties to the government, assuming the masses of eyes and jagged mouths were that of the shoggoths of his creepy mythos.

In the center of all of these monsters, however, came the person Miia and I had been looking for aside two others. In the center was a woman on an obsidian throne that walked forward with a life of its own, the person sitting in it not having to move a single inch. The woman herself simply seemed like an older version of Sashenka. Her skin was an alabaster white, similar to her hair that was riddled with streaks of grey, with the occasional wrinkle around her lips, and her eyes flashing all different kinds of colors at me dangerously, similar to her daughter's. She had four arms, the lower set resting on the arm rests of her throne, and the other two crossed curiously as she examined me. I couldn't see much with her sitting down or behind her dress, but I could tell that her body was fit with possibly centuries of training and storing magic power, because even just looking at her, I knew how dangerous she was. My ability to sense energy could pick up on that way too easily.

On her right, however, was someone who terrified me even more. Whereas everyone surrounding her was a normal, female liminal, this person was a man who looked entirely human. There wasn't a single shred of monstrous features anywhere on him. It was painfully obvious to me that this man was the same monster species as I was because no matter species a liminal is, there is always some small feature showing them to be a monster, even if its only a pair of fangs or pointed ears, and yet this man had none of that. Physically speaking, he was completely human.

This raised a question about why a normal human would be associating with the queen of all demons, but the answer to that question is the same as how I knew the woman on the throne was as powerful as she was- he reeked of monster energy. There was no doubt in my mind that he was an incubus, and the Demon Queen's husband.

The scarier part, though, was that I didn't need to be able to sense energy to know that I was out of my depth fighting him. Despite being outnumbered, I was pretty confident that Miia and I could defeat the twenty or thirty monsters that had surrounded us with enough firepower and a bit of luck, but the Demon Queen at least twice as strong as every one of her soldiers combined, and her husband was at least comparable to her. What scared me, though, wasn't his magic power but that he was a master warrior. On an instinctive level, whether that was because I could see the way he carried himself or there were subtle things about his body language I was subconsciously picking up on, I knew full well that I wouldn't be able to beat him one on one. Throw his wife and daughter into the mix and, well…

Miia and I were screwed.

"I see you've picked up on our little game, haven't you Kayo?" the Queen said to me lightly, almost happily.

I stepped back. Her voice was young and childish, which was the first part that caught me off guard, but then I felt a burst of power with every single word she spoke. Was this what a Queen level monster's power was like? My legs began shaking so bad that I thought I was going to fall over. My limbs became light, feeling as if they were about to fly off, and i recognized the feeling as pure adrenaline.

It was fear. Feeling afraid before going into a fight is a natural reaction, but fighters train for years, sometimes their whole lives to try to control that feeling so their fear doesn't overcome them. Personally, I hadn't felt this scared going into a fight since middle school.

Then, I looked over to Miia. She had just almost as much training as I had and never had a problem throwing down with someone in the past, but looking at her now, I could see just how badly this woman's presence was hurting her. She looked like she was about to cry. Seeing the love of my life look ready to forfeit her life like that snapped me out of whatever funk I was in. Biting back my own fear, I grabbed her hand. She jumped, turning to me with tears already threatening to spill down her cheeks, so I gave her a supportive nod, and with just a small rise in our confidence, we turned to face our enemy together.

"A game? Really? That's what you think this is?" I shot at her with a cocky smirk. She grinned and licked her lips at me, showing off that same familiar feature that Sashenka had with the way her mouth curves.

"No, you're right. That isn't the case," she said, "A game would require two players. This is more cat and mouse."

She gestured around the clearing to her soldiers who were watching us carefully. They pressed their fists together and gave us a series of arrogant chuckles because they knew that the numbers advantage all but guaranteed their victory, not even bothering to ready their weapons as they were so assured of their iminate victory. This confidence of theirs gave them a stark contrast to their leaders, though. The Queen and the two people at her side, her husband and her daughter, didn't show the same pride as the rest of their legion but instead were still treating us like the threats they believed me and Miia to be. The incubus didn't move. He didn't crack a smirk or relax the tension in his muscles, holding onto the sword at his hip tightly. Sashenka mostly hid behind her mother, knowing already what I was capable of, but the Queen showed the starkest difference to the rest, showing how in control of the situation she was, but not once leaving an opening for me to charge her and attack. Unlike her daughter, she didn't have the air of superiority that spoke of an all but guaranteed victory.

She was someone who knew that the fight wasn't over until one of you couldn't walk away, and that made her real threat.

"So, what was it? Illusions? Portal?" I asked, trying to stall.

"Something like that," she said, "The material and the astral planes, the fae realm, the various elemental expanses- they're all connected on a winding spiral, and in some places in the world, the metaphysical barriers connecting these worlds are thin. Demons have a rare ability among liminals to traverse these planes easily. A little magic here, a little spatial manipulation there, and we can make you believe a small forest is ten miles larger than what it really is."

"I understood some of those words!" I said confidently. Miia was silently wrapping her way around me, not so tight that I couldn't move if it was necessary, but trying to put some kind of barrier between me and the others.

"You're in the demon realm," she said through a smirk, "My realm. My kingdom. Only partially, though. Technically speaking, there are… complications to bringing non-demons any further than this."

I bit my tongue. I was an idiot. Chasing after Sashenka to begin with was a bad idea, but I had inadvertently dove right into enemy territory with zero hope of having any back up. Even worse, I had involved Miia in this as well. Glancing at her, feeling several beads of sweat rolling down my head, she was taking it surprisingly well, though. She didn't seem scared. If anything, she seemed ready for a fight. Her pupils were slit, the skin around her face was so intimidatingly tense, crinkled into a dangerous glare that the skin around her eyes began darkening monstrously. Her fangs extended, and her tail was rattling to push her enemies away. I hadn't seen that since we got jumped on our first date.

As for me, I was losing it. It wasn't that I was about to go crazy, angry, or lose control and start making bad decisions by attacking the closest liminal. No, I was losing the will to live. I had lost. I had put myself into an unwinnable situation, bringing the love my life down with me, and even if I managed to get out of this alive, there was no way it was going to be back to my old home. Either I would die, or I would be enslaved. How hilarious was that? I didn't even have the energy to raise my head, let alone my arms and fight back. Maybe it was best if I gave myself up so they could kill me?

Miia put her hand on my shoulder. She tightened her grip so hard that at my old human strength, there was no doubt in my mind that the bone would have shattered, and she tightened her tail around me only briefly in a hug. She looked me in the eye. Her face lightened up so the monstrous appearance was gone, but her eyes were digging into my own so seriously, sending a clear message.

I tightened my fist and pulled my head back up, staring the Queen in the eye with a bright smile.

"I have to say! I'm impressed!" I said with an elaborate bow, pushing myself further than I ever thought I was capable of, "I'm glad to see that someone here has some kind of brains to them."

"Oh, stop it! You flatter me!" the Queen said, waving me off.

"Please, my Queen, you must honor me with your name. I can't keep calling you Queen when this is all over."

"Hm? And why's that?" she seductively ran her hand through her hair.

"Because once this is all over, you and I will be on much more personal terms than that."

I felt the energy of everyone surrounding me and Miia spike, shocked that I had addressed their leader in that way. Sashenka's tail stub flicked up, fully erect, and she turned to her mother with an expression so fearful as if she was worried about getting caught in a coming explosion. Her husband seemed especially perturbed, grinning angrily. The Queen herself had the most unique reaction, her smile only growing as she seemed pretty flattered by the sentiment. Miia, though, snickered and scratched my back, thinking it was funny.

"You may call me Kalisis," she greeted, dipping her head down and pulling on her skirt to curtsy.

"And you may call me Kayo," I responded, "But just so you know, you'll be screaming out 'Daddy.'"

That got the demons to move. They started roaring and screaming at me, some of them even drew their weapons and started to charge me, but not a single one of them followed through with their attack. That was because the first one to reach me was the King. He drew his sword and dashed for me, raising his blade high above his and bringing down at me in a powerful arc, but before it could connect, I drew Drakmor and blocked the strike, the following force making sink into the ground.

The anger of the horde died down. The King raised an eyebrow at me and ducked under Miia's tail as she slashed it out at him, and with a single bound, jumped back to his wife's side. Kalisis perked up. It looked like I had finally gotten one over on her.

"Who might your mother be?" she asked simply, and I felt a burst of magic hit my brain, compelling me to answer.

"Claribelle Ghirahim," I said beyond my will. Miia wrapped her tail around my waist and pulled me close to her, draping her arms around my neck protectively. As for Kalisis, a warm smile struck her face.

"Clara," she said gingerly, "I remember her. You come from a powerful line, Kayo." She turned to Sashenka. "You've done well. Not only did you acquire a second incubus for our kingdom, and snag yourself a husband, but you also managed to find possibly the most powerful incubus to ever live."

"Thank you, Mother. My plan worked perfectly," Sashenka said confidently, suddenly becoming sure of herself and stepping out of her shadow.

"I'm sorry?" I asked, my own strength finally running aground, "You mind running that by me one more time? Just to make sure I heard you correctly?"

"Oh, was that not clear?" Sashenka laughed, then leaned forward and crossed her arms cockily, "I. Tricked. You. After I learned that you were an incubus, and that your mother had one of the highest body counts in the entire history of the Interspecies Wars, I figured that with how rare incubi are, there wouldn't be another one of your kind in history any stronger than you are. Do you know how long it is until midnight?"

I looked at my watch. The second hand was only ticks away from the twelve, the implied time coming in only a few breaths.

"My plan was simple," she said, "Step one was to observe how you interact with your harem for a long time. Step two would be to expose you to demonic energy, in this case through combat, and kickstart your transformation wouldn't take three years, and then step three was to approach you and get your attention. At that point, it was all about acting and making you think you were the one in control, and then make you believe that it was your idea to bring me out here and fight me. In order to do that, I just had to appeal to your more altruistic nature. You're a selfish being, so I knew that trying to make you see the greater good wasn't go to make you come to our side. Did you really think I was that stupid?"

Finally, she turned to me, her hands linked behind her back and her tail stub flicking behind her excitedly. The second hand finally clicked to midnight. That's when the pain hit me.

It was like my bones had turned to sand and my blood being set on fire without any build up, a forceful pain hitting me all at once. I could feel my arms, my legs, and my ribs snapping in half. Then, they snapped again and again and again until I knew they had been completely shattered into dust. I felt my organs melting from the inside out and my spine shrinking and growing rapidly until I was brought to the ground, flailing and rolling around in utter terror.

"Darling! Darling, no. Don't let this happen. Fight it!" Miia yelled, dropping down and holding me, "You have to fight! It's OK, you're going to be OK! You have to keep fighting, alright? I'm here. I'm here, I promise I won't leave!"

I couldn't scream. I couldn't even breath. It felt like I was melting from the inside out, and my mouth dropped open in a silent face of agony. When the individual types of pain in my limbs rounded out to a general stabbing, I felt different sensations in my back and skull. It was like there were things trying to shoot out of me.

"Do you know why we chose this night?" Sashenka continued, "It's midnight on Friday the Thirteenth. You humans already know that this particular date is spiritually powerful, in good ways for some and bad ways for others, but demonic energy is particularly high on this day, even for a partially transformed incubus. All that came next was pouring even more mana into you through either fighting or sex, and waiting until this particular time of night when demons are their strongest, and the energy became too much for even you to handle."

I was finally able to scream at this point. When a pair of rocky horns sprouted from forehead, draconic wings from my back, and a scaly tail from the base of my spine, the force of them splitting my skin in half was enough of a shock for me to get a single breath. How fast they grew didn't exactly hurt, though. Instead, it just felt weird, similar to a cat clawing at your legs, or rolling down a hill until you no longer have enough control to stop it.

"Nice job cutting off my tail, though," she finished, "I got sloppy and you took advantage of it. Good opening."

"I will kill you," Miia growled at her, "I swear to the Ancient Gods, that I will kill you!"

"Is this too much for you to handle, sweetheart?" she teased, "Does it hurt knowing that all of my energy is swirling around inside of him? That my hot, sticky mana is all over him?"

"Shut up!" Miia demanded.

"Will it make you feel better if I tell you that he's effectively my husband now?" she said.

Miia went silent.

"That's right!" Sashenka cackled, "I put so much energy in him that he can't resist me now! Even if he ever tried to fight back, my mana makes up so much of his aura that he wouldn't even have the strength to make a move on me. He's under my spell now. Your so-called boyfriend is now my imprisoned love slave!"

I started standing. A pair of horns as long as my forearm curved upwards from the top of my forehead, just under my hairline, showing off the power within me by sparking a small blue flame between them. Stretching my back, I expanded my wings as far as I could. They needed to breath. Flapping them a few times, I felt the strength within every leathery fiber, kicking off the ground a bit because I didn't know how strong they were yet. Then, there was my tail. It was so weird feeling something twisting and turning around there, a brand new prehensile limb flicking back and forth. The bright white and blue scales shined in the moon all the way down to the knifish spade. Testing its length and its power, I slapped it on the ground a few times, cracking the forest floor beneath me after only two strong whips. Claws on my fingers, a tail long enough to slap my face with, even a sharp set of fangs that were serrated on their edges.

This. This was power. This was the type of strength I had wanted all throughout my life, and I had that beautiful succubus to thank for it. The only question was why was Miia still trying to get my attention?

"Darling, you have to fight! You have to fight her!" she shouted at me, "You can't give up like this! You can't let her win and leave all of us behind! Me, Cerea, Rachnee, Suu, Papi, your parents… We all need you!"

Were those supposed to be names? Was I supposed to care? My family could burn in hell for all I cared now. I was powerful. I could burn, kill, and destroy anything and everything in my path. I could go find and kill those people who attacked me in the park back when Centorea was training me and not have anything to worry about. I think I understood why demons didn't want to join the Interspecies Coalition. With strength like this, why would they? We were clearly stronger than any other liminal species in the world, and even humans couldn't stand against us like this. Not when me, Sashenka, Kalisis, and the King were there to fight with them.

There was no way I was going back to my old life like this. Miia could cry all she wanted, but I wasn't going back to the old life I had, as if that weakness would somehow help me grow.

"Come here, Daddy," Sashenka told me and held her hands out.

I began stepping forward, but Miia just had to get in my path and grab the collar of my shirt. She wrapped her tail around me and sobbed into my chest.

"I can't! I won't let you go!" she cried, "You can't do this to me! Don't do this to me!"

Miia lifted her head up and gave me one strong, passionate, tear covered kiss directly on my lips. It was wet, sloppy, and emotional. It was probably the worst kiss I ever had, and given our past together, it did mean something to me that she was so insistent on getting one last kiss that it… it hurt. It hurt me to see her like that. However, it didn't hurt me as much as that slap hurt her. I backhanded her. The force sent her flying across the clearing until she slammed into a tree, the impact knocking the wind out of her.

"Bitch," I said simply, "Don't ever touch me again."

As I started for Sashenka again, I heard her say one last thing.

"Please don't leave me," she whimpered, "I… I love you. I will always love you. Please come back. Please…"

"You're so pathetic, you know that?" I sighed, and continued on.

"Hmm, you had me worried there for a second," Sashenka mewled, running her hands through my hair, "I almost thought you were going to fall for her games, but you really do hate her now don't you?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but she put her finger to my lips.

"Don't say anything," she ordered, "Just kiss me."

I didn't even hesitate to bring my hands around her neck, one resting over the other. I didn't bring my body any closer to hers, though, and she didn't make that motion either since she was so focused on mimicking the same affection that Miia had earlier. She moved in slowly, closing her eyes and parting my lips. I did the same. I pulled her head closer to my own by her neck.

Then, I pushed her head down and brought my knee to her jaw.

"Ow, what the-" Sashenka stammered after stumbling back. She brought her fingers to her lips, and when she retracted them, she saw that blood was dripping down them and felt it fall from her chin.

"Are you alright, my Love?" I said, freaking out over Miia's condition as I knelt over her, "I'm so sorry! I had to make it look realistic!"

"I should have known," Miia said, coughing up blood.

"Here, let me help," I said, and placed my hand on the nape of her neck, pouring my own energy through her. My mana flooded through her. All of her bruises and her exhaustion drained away from her, and through my new sixth sense, I could feel her strength returning to her, her bones snapping back into place. She had no idea how to react, only able to look herself over dumbfounded.

"How… How?!" Sashenka demanded, looking like she was hyperventilating.

"Power of boners," I said tritely.

"What?!"

"I already told you, didn't I?" I said with a cocky smirk, "I'm the incubus. You can't tell me how to live my life. Plus, I've been engaging in three to one with Miia, Rachnee, and Cerea for over a year now. It doesn't matter how much of your mana you splooged into me. All Miia had to do was kiss me for her energy to overpower yours. Hence, power of boners."

"I didn't expect for this to happen," Kalisis cut in, finally stepping off of her throne to reveal her eldritch tentacle lower body, "Although, I suppose it makes sense. When Ragnar became an incubus, I was his only partner, so it made sense for him to become fully devoted to me, and we were… how do you put it? Raveling up each other's little balls of yarn? Without using that to infect you, my daughter never stood a chance of brainwashing you, even if her energy is more powerful than your lovers and more compatible with your own." It was the first time Kalisis shot me a smile that I didn't find threatening. "If this had been your plan all along, I would congratulate you, but the truth is this is just dumb luck and random chance working in your favor. Even so, I'm excited to see what you do next over the course of your life now."

For a second, I thought I imagined it, but apparently I wasn't the only one who saw the implications in that last sentence.

"Mom?" Sashenka asked.

"I'm not going to help you overpower him," she said, "This was your plan, and you failed to follow through. As far as I'm concerned, he can just walk away with his life and his fiance without any issues. If you truly wish to beat a dead horse and try making him your husband against his will, then you will have to do so on your own since I only helped you as much as I had out of necessity. Fight him if you wish, but any aid from me is now lost to you."

Kalisis waved to her soldiers, and with confused but understanding looks tossed to each other, they readily stood down. They backed away and dipped their heads, no longer threatening me and Miia. Even the King stood at attention and gave me a quick, informal salute by tapping two fingers to his head, and when his wife made sure that everyone was calm, she turned to me with a properly royal demeanor.

"You have bested us, Lord Ghirahim," Kalisis greeted me, bowing lowly from her waist, "Forgiveness for my daughter, for our entire race even, may not come easy, but should you find it in your heart, I pray that you give us your mercy in that regard, and if I may, I would like to stay in touch. We will be taking our leave now. May your days be filled with love."

She didn't wait for me to respond. Even if she did, I wasn't sure if I would have wanted to keep her here any longer than necessary, but after they were gone, there was one more issue to take care of. Sashenka.

Miia leapt to my side when she turned on us. We watched in both horror and amazement as an explosion of red aura enveloped her entire body, completely masking her from view, and then died down just as quickly after she swiped it away. Standing in her place now, was someone entirely different. Someone who was much more dangerous opponent than the one I fought earlier

Her leather corset had turned into an obsidian breastplate, darker than any other substance in the world and absorbing all forms of visible light. Her thigh high boots, thong, and shoulder high gloves were made from the same material. The majority of her skin was exposed with this transformation, and much akin to my own, two horns sprouted from her skull, but these came from the back and curled forward while mine came from the front and upwards. Her wings were darker now, riddled with spikes. Differing from the usual demon aesthetic, though, were two purple hearts tattooed against her skin underneath her now radiating, glowing pink eyes.

I knew she was a succubus, but this was… A little much. It bugged me, and not in the way seeing Rachnera fresh out of the tub and drying off her perky chest bugged me. This was just annoying.

"What? What is this supposed to be?" I asked.

"It's my demon form, you moron!" she snapped, stomping her feet.

"I get that, but what's with the thong?" I pressed, "Is it armor? Is it supposed to be some kind of magic, or…?"

"No, it seduces…" She started, but then rubbed her eyes tiredly, "Yes. It's armor. It's not its primary purposes, but this form increases my aura enough that most conventional weapons won't hurt me. Actually, you would need several high-impact explosives to even get through it, let alone kill me, but other than that, the thong, boots and all of this is biological. They're not clothes or armor, they're part of my body. Satisfied?"

"I… No," I said.

"I'm going to kill you now," she said.

"Fair enough," I agreed. Really, I understood how she wanted to kill me after body shaming her that hard, no matter how video-game-logic the get up was.

I drew Drakmor one more time, hopefully the final time. When I first picked it up, there was this vague feeling of unease attached to it, but now that I had fully transformed and could sense energy easier than ever, I could see the overwhelming sense of dread within this blade. I could hear the screams. This wasn't a weapon that made for protection of the user, for self defense, or anything of the sort. This was a blade made for killing. The more I saw the ghosts of all that my mom had killed with it, the more I saw their faces writhe in eternal torment, the more it sunk in that the only reason Drakmor should ever be used was if I intended to kill with it. Knowing that, I put it back in its sheath. It was too much for me. Only when I took Sashenka's life would I let it breathe again.

Miia grabbed my hand and we faced our final battle, our true final battle, one more time. We weren't going to let each other down. This time, I wasn't giving up.

Sashenka's powered up version was much stronger than she was in our first fight, and it showed. The very second we connected with each other, a blast of energy shot from us and threw the forest into a craze. I threw the first punch. She blocked it and tried to counter, but I slipped under it and caught her in the jaw. Then, as if it didn't even matter, she circled around me and brought her leg up, and I tried to block the kick, but she hit me hard in the back of my head, right in my blindspot.

I went flying across the woods, rolling over several times. I curled up, ready to defend myself from the next attack, but Miia came to my protection and dashed for Sashenka, constricting her entire body. Her monstrous mug crawled over her face again. She was so strong as she wrapped around Sashenka, I could hear her muscles tightening and Sashenka was straining to push her off. I extended my wings and flew at her. Propping myself on Miia's tail, I flipped myself upwards until I was facing the ground, and brought my knee on top of Sashenka's head with the full weight of gravity coming with me.

It didn't work. It really, really did not work. Sashenka used her demon fangs to bite right through my jeans and into my knee, blood spurting from it in droves. It scared Miia to the point where her grip loosened, and Sashenka grabbed her face and threw her hard against the ground, almost knocking her out cold.

I got back up and sent a ton of healing energy to my wound. Sashenka came at me again, but not quick enough to stop me from healing, and I met her easily enough to match her attacks. She clawed my chest but my coat blocked it. She went to punch me in the face and grazed me a few times, but didn't do much damage, and when I saw her throw a hook just a little too wide, I took full advantage and moved in. Grabbing her neck and arm, I threw her over my back. I was hoping she'd hit the ground, but she clearly knew how to handle an attack like that and righted herself with her wings until she was on her feet. I had a plan, though. Jumping away from her while the opening presented itself, I flipped over and put my hand on Miia's waist, firing off enough energy to heal her in an instant and she coiled out of the way just in time before Sashenka impaled her fist in the ground.

I moved in and threw a kick, but Sashenka got out of the way just in time. She went for a jab-cross, but I slipped under her attack and moved in. I didn't grab her, and I didn't attack. I pushed forward until I was pushing her back, keeping her moving and not letting her sit. She thought she saw an opening. When she moved to my back, she went for a kick, and I brought my tail up to block it, hitting it to the side, and then followed it up with a kick of my own.

This one landed easily, and sent her flying. Her footwork was fantastic, though, and unlike me, she stayed on her feet. She looked up at me, but I pressed forward. I threw a barrage of punches, following her head movement, and catching her when she tried to block or dodge. She wasn't keeping up anymore. Now that I had gained the upper hand, I was starting to hurt her, but now that I was, she took the flight to the air.

Flying for real couldn't be too hard, could it? I flapped my wings a few times, then jumped and lifted off into the air. I didn't know what I was doing at this point. I was a white belt fighting a master in aerial combat, and it showed, seeing how she brought me to my metaphorical knees in a matter of seconds. She was faster and got around me. She knew the leverage and circled under each attack to counter me. I was bleeding and my right eye was swollen, and I couldn't heal myself fast enough to keep up with her, and at some point, my arms dropped. I knew I had to run, but she wouldn't even let me drop from exhaustion, let alone let me hit the dirt intentionally. As she watched me there, trying desperately to keep afloat, she smirked, and charged again.

We must have gotten lower as the fight went on, because a familiar pink tail slapped her and got her off balance. I let myself fall. My wings went limp and I began falling backwards, letting Miia take Sashenka's attention, the succubus unable to harm her while she was stuck in the trees. Then, an instinct hit me. I had healed myself up enough, and at this point I was starting to get tired, but there was something else I could do.

Throwing my arm up, I shot a cord of webbing out of my palm and wrapped it around Sashenka's arm. Miia must have seen what I was doing and wrapped her tail around her leg, and together, after Miia jumped from the branches and we both continued to fall to the ground, we pulled Sashenka with us as hard as we could. We pulled her so hard that she hit the ground before us and so hard that a small mushroom cloud boomed from the impact. Trees began to fall down towards the impact, thanks to the aftershock. As if trying to follow through with that superhuman judo throw, I dug my hands into the nearest tree, pushed my tail into the ground and pushed as hard as I could to throw it into Sashenka's body. Miia did the same, leaning back into the ground and using her tail to push her tree over.

We waited for the dust to clear. Sashenka was clearly not done with this fight, but after that barrage, she looked like she was in just as much pain as I was, being barely able to get to her feet. She smiled tiredly at me.

"Super strength, a prehensile tail, and spider webs?" she gasped, "You really do have traits from each one of your partners. That's just… That's not fair."

"I don't have anything smart to say to that," I said through ragged breaths, "I'm just about done with you."

I pulled my guns on her and fired every shot I could, my inhuman eyes and dexterity being able to make using two guns easy. I prevented her from getting close and kept her moving. She teleported several times through mist and kept trying to move forward, but got hit a few times, her aura not stopping the force dead so it hurt her but not impaling her. When the clips were empty, I moved towards her. We grabbed each other in hulking masses of limbs and tried to roll over one another, and she got me first. She pushed me off and threw a few punches that all landed. At that point, all I could do was push forward.

She began moving back, and my own strikes couldn't keep up. I hit her a few times, but now, she was able to dodge and block me pretty easily, not countering me, but I wasn't winning anymore. Miia moved in alongside me. With her at my side, we started making headway since two on one was never easy, and starting with a slap, she was thrown off.

Miia slapped, I jabbed. Miia chopped, and I kicked. We both used our tails, we both used our hands, and at one point, Miia actually bit her. Sometimes, Sashenka tried to push us back or get around us, but against the two of us on even ground, with several more limbs of all shapes and sizes helping us, she wasn't even able to put up her guard anymore. Instead, she threw her arms out and let out a terrible roar.

A blast of energy exploded from us. At this point, anything that might have resembled a forest now just showed a barren wasteland of death as any trees that were still standing, any grass that was still living, was now utterly annihilated by Sashenka's magic. Miia and I were pushed back ourselves. With that chaotic magic, I felt my skin ripping apart, cuts appearing all over my body as if my soul was being stripped away. Unfortunately, Miia got the worst of it. She wasn't knocked unconscious, but I watched as the only thing she was able to do was push herself up just enough to lift her head to see what happened next.

I was brought to my knees. At this point, it would have taken everything I possibly had in me to stand, let alone fight back, and the worst thing that happened to Sashenka was that she was brought to her knees. She was still able to push herself back up.

Throwing her head back, she let out a roar of triumph and started tumbling towards me. I assumed she wanted Miia to watch as she killed me, or brainwashed me, or whatever she was going to do, and while I winced in pain, I was helpless as she pulled up by my coat's collar. I saw a sickening smile spread across her lips. I could only watch as she closed her eyes again and brought me closer her to her so she could kiss me and bring me under her control.

I did all I could. I threw all I had left in me and headbutted her as hard as I could. It was weak, but unexpected. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make Sashenka let go of me and stumble backwards, grabbing her nose and glaring at me dangerously.

"Would you… would you just stop already?!" she demanded.

As I tried to stay on my feet, black spots running through my vision and Miia looking as though she was slowly going to sleep, I met her eyes. That's when I saw the truth of it. I was seconds away from passing out, and she had more than enough energy left over to kill me several times over, fully outclassing me and ultimately winning this fight, but what I saw in her eyes wasn't victory or anger. It was fear. She was one move away from winning, and she was afraid.

That gave me enough strength to move forward. All I needed was one final assault, and I trudged forward as best I could to push her back. She only hesitated for a second to meet me. Luckily, her first palm strike didn't knock me out and it didn't knock me over, so I met her with a punch of my own, connecting with her jaw. My hand broke from that and I grunted, but she was still scared. In fact, she stepped back. I pushed myself even further and grabbed her collar so I could headbutt her one more time, and she didn't even bother to block. She hid behind her arms, holding them out in front of her. I slapped her, I punched her, I bit her and I beat her, and the more I pushed myself beyond what I was capable of, inching further and further to my own inevitable collapse, the more scared she became.

"Enough! I give up! I surrender! You win! Please stop!" Sashenka pleaded.

She was… she was crying? Miia somehow managed to drag herself over to me and switched between trying to hold me up and keep herself up. I smiled. Did we really just win?

"Is that all you've got?" I insulted her, "After all this, you make us fight for our lives, get us this close, and that's all you have to give us? Your surrender?"

"Please, I- I'm sorry, just- just don't hurt me anymore…" she continued to sob.

I wrapped my hand around Drakmor's sheathe. This was it. We had won and it was time to take her head as my prize. This was what I had been fighting her- peace. Miia grabbed my other hand in support. When I looked in her eyes, Miia's normally motherly and tender caring eyes, it made me uncomfortable. That wasn't her. Murder and domination wasn't who she was.

"No," I said and rubbed Sashenka's head affectionately, "You stop. Leave us alone."

"OK! I will! I promise! You won't have anything to worry about from me anymore, I swear!" she agreed, a panicked smile spreading across her face.

Without wasting anymore time, she opened a portal and disappeared through it, but that wasn't all she did, even though I was pretty sure the after effect was unintentional. The forest around us became alive once more in the blink of an eye. Literally, the blink of an eye. With Sashenka's magic taking her away from us, Miia and I were forced to blink our eyes, and we watched as the woods around us turned from a barren wasteland into the familiar pines of the park by my house. Once again, I was able to sense the auras of my friends and family.

I turned to Miia with the biggest smile I could manage, but just like the rest of my body, even my mouth had trouble getting it up, pun intended. Wrapping one arm around each other, we started walking. The one place we both wanted to be was with the rest of our family.

"It's over now," Miia stated, "Isn't it?"

"I guess so," I said, "I can see why humans have been such a threat to liminals now. You guys… monsters… you don't know how to push yourselves, do you?"

I thought that might sound offensive, but Miia nodded as if it wasn't an issue.

"Humans aren't tied to their biology like we are," she said, "Liminals are tied closer to our animal ancestors than humans are, and while we have some small amount of magic in us, our survival instincts make fight or flight twice as strong in us than it is for you. You saw that today. The only reason you were able to beat Sashenka was because she didn't know how to fight against a human's stubbornness."

"You looked like you were ready to thrown down, though," I noticed, "I don't mean to be rude, but you were way outmatched in that fight, but you fought anyway."

"I'm my tribe's best fighter! I've been trained for years to push that feeling down and fight with all I had, no matter how bad the feeling of flight is. I'm pretty sure I could even give Cerea a run for her money," Miia said proudly, then looked forward and started choking up, "I wanted to run. I knew Sashenka was going to kill me if we ended up losing and I've never fought an enemy that scared me more than she did but you… I couldn't lose you. You gave me the strength to keep fight." I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

"You're an idiot," I said.

"You're one to talk," she shot back, "Why didn't you kill her?"

"I guess I'm an idiot too?" I tried.

"Not good enough," she said flatly, "I want to hear the real reason."

I felt my chest starting to tighten up. I didn't want to share the real reason I spared Sashenka when I so desperately wanted to kill her, when I know I could have easily slit her throat, but if Miia really wanted me, then I had to try.

"I didn't want to," I started, "Don't get me wrong, I would have had no problem with ending her life. I can't physically kill myself, but I have no problem killing someone else."

Miia watched me out of the corner of her eye and whined uncomfortably.

"But I don't want to become a killer when I'm supposed to be a husband, and at some point a father," I continued, "I don't want our family to be based on blood and a pile of corpses, or even just one corpse, when we finally get married."

"Darling, I love you!" Miia squealed and wrapped herself around me, hugging me so tightly that I wasn't able to escape the fleshy pillow prison she was suffocating me in.

"Miia! Miia stop, I can't breathe!" I said.

"I can't believe you are thinking so much about our family like this!" she said, twirling me around with an unfounded amount of strength, "You are so incredible, Darling, and I know you will become an amazing father and you're already an amazing husband! I don't know how you can possibly care so much about us! How could expect me not to fall in love with you when you're like this?!"

"Master?! Miia?! Where have you guys been?!" we heard Centorea's voice and looked over to see her standing in the brush.

"It looks like you guys had fun," Rachnee appeared out of nowhere, wrapping several webs around our bodies to dress our wounds.

"You're bleeding everywhere, and Master! You have horns now! What happened? I demand you tell me these things!" Centorea ranted.

"What the hell are those?" Mom said poking my horns.

"Cute tail," Tio was next, going to stroke my tail, and when a jolt of euphoria shot up my spine, I slapped her with it. There was a time and place.

"This can't be happening," Smith groaned, "I am going to have to do so much paperwork to cover all this. The damages, a new species of liminal, a dozen more criminals to document, a male liminal that is also a new species… Oh, joy. I should just quit at this rate."

"That's what you get when you work for the government!" Zombina said, throwing an arm over her boss's shoulder.

"Hold on, let me see if I can- O DEAR GOD THAT IS WEIRD!" I freaked.

I figured I could hide my monster form somehow, either through magic or something else, and my wings, horns, and tail shooting themselves back into my body was even freakier than when they grew out the first time. It was even worse when I could feel several new bones and tendons circulating around my body internally. Everyone jumped back in surprise, but one person had it the worst.

"Did I just see that? Please tell me you guys all saw that. I don't need to get my eye checked do I?" Mono squeaked. Military sniper or not, that girl had seen way too much for one evening.

"Uh, did it look something like this?" Doppel transformed into a copy of me, wings and all, and then I watched as they retracted in my body from third person.

"That is more unsettling the second time," my dad summarized, "Do it again, please. I need to take notes."

"Know what? I do not care," my mom decided, "All I want to do is go home, shower, get something to eat, and go to bed. It's been a long night."

"Sounds good to me," I decided, "After all that, I could at least use a stiff drink."

Arm and arm, we all left the park, heading back to our homestead for some well deserved rest. As cliche as it might sound, we were at peace again, and the only thing on our minds at this point were the comforts of home. A well-cooked meal, a warm bed, a hot shower, and in my case, several people to share my bed with and give my love to. We had earned it. Not to mention that I was physically exhausted and probably wasn't going to make it to the house without passing out several times.

Miia pulled back for a second, though. While the others walked ahead of us, she grabbed my hand and slowed me until I stopped, the group slowly separating from us while Miia looked deeply into my eyes. The sun was just starting to rise behind her. It gave a type of otherworldly glow to her features that both made her more beautiful, and showed her off as the angelic creature that she was. Placing her hand gently on my cheek, she gave me one more kiss. This was one was dirty, tense, weak, and it had hardly any energy to it after everything we had just gone through, but if I'm being honest, it was the best kiss I had ever had.

"I wanted to correct the last one I gave you. It was too wet last time," she toyed, batting her eyelashes for me.

"You're a mess, you know that?" I teased her.

"And you're an idiot," she said lovingly.

With one more kiss, she started heading after the group again, pulling me along by the hand. I didn't bother denying her last statement. There was no point in trying to deny something that was so clearly the truth.


	23. Epilogue

Chapter 22: Epilogue

I was so glad that the ICEP paid for my food bill, because with ten liminal mouths to feed, one of whom ate more than the rest of them combined, I wasn't going to be able to afford this party. The Saturday following Sashenka's defeat, everyone got together to celebrate. We had plenty of food thanks to everyone bringing something to the table, my dad manned the grill- and didn't let anyone approach his masterpieces until he plated them -and Centorea and mom went back and forth to the grocery store in case we needed anything else. It was pretty nice affair, especially since we didn't have to pay for it.

The only problem is that Smith and the MON Squad had invited themselves over. Miia and I were still pretty banged up from our fight with Sashenka and had planned to spend the entire day in bed, but well, since when has our coordinator ever respected my personal space? At the very least, they brought the drinks, chips, and plates.

In any case, we somehow managed to pull ourselves out of bed and join everyone in the backyard for the barbecue, Dad having already fired up the grill, slow cooking a… was that a lamb?

"Huh, I didn't know you liked lamb," I said.

"Oh, yeah I got a taste for it when I aided a research study in Sweden," he said, "It's just way too expensive over here in the US, or else I swear I could eat it for every meal."

I was almost barrelled over when Tio rushed up behind me, but she had the foresight to grab me and pull me into her J cups, hugging me like a teddy bear.

"Is it almost ready?" she said, wiping her mouth when I was steady.

"Give it a few more minutes, Tee," he admonished, slapping her forehead with his spatula, and while she pouted and rubbed her forehead, Zombina called over.

"Seriously, Tio. You have to let him cook it. This stuff is so good!" she said in between bites of a set of kebabs, "I can't get enough of this! Uncle C, you have to go professional!"

"Uncle C?" I teased, raising my eyebrow at him.

"I'm closer with your friends than you are," he shot back.

"I would hope not," I said meaningfully, licking my lips as lustfully as I could.

"Kayo," Dad said. It was short and sweet, and suddenly I felt like I was in court.

"Well, if you really wanted to, I wouldn't mind," Tio said.

"Not helping, Tee," I said with a flattered smirk, imagining a few scenarios I'd to enact with her before I slipped out of her arms and used my wings to fly over to the other side of the grill.

"Kayo, do that again," Dad said.

I looked at him curiously but agreed, and began flapping a few times, making sure to put some effort into staying on the ground this time, and after each gust from my wings, the fire in the grill grew larger and hotter. I raised my eyebrows in surprise. If wings were useful for mundane things like that, I wondered what else I could with them? Retracting them, though, I had a more fun idea. I wondered just what kind of things I could with my tail in less family friendly venues, and smirked devilishly at the prospect.

I heard the gate crash open, followed by a bit of shrieking. Mom and Centorea had returned, but Mom's face was flushed and she was holding up a half empty bottle of dark liquid, happily cheering for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Centorea sighed heavily and dropped off a few boxes labeled with all sorts of alcohol that they had probably bought for the party. Mom must have dove into them on the way home.

Jumping across the yard in a single bound, I landed right on Centorea's back, making her jump a little but smiling when she it was only me.

"Master, you must stop frightening me like that," she said.

"Aw, but that's half the fun isn't it?" I purred into her ear, and feeling her blush, I jumped off of her.

Reaching around, I took her hand and gave it a slow kiss on her knuckles, looking her in the eyes and spooking the poor centaur, freezing her in place. Snickering to myself, I poked her ribs. Frantically, she threw her arms out and flung them around in some poor effort of defense, puffing her cheeks out and glaring at me.

"Did they teach you those blocks in knight school," I said playfully.

"No, if you must know, my ribs are-" she paused, realizing when she realized what she was saying.

"Your ribs are what? Ticklish? Oh, that's good to know." I grinned maliciously.

"Master…" she whined embarrassedly. In an unconscious motion, I laced my fingers into hers and stroked her cheek with my other hand.

"Hey, listen to me," I said, snagging her attention, "I wouldn't be here without you. All that training you gave me on top of what I already had, the swordplay and how to maneuver against liminals is the only reason I'm here now. I only tease you like that because I love you. As soon as I figure out how to put my appreciation for you in words that aren't either sarcastic or riddled with innuendos, I'll let you know. I'm trying, alright?"

She smiled at me, but I couldn't tell whether she was debating slapping me or kissing me.

"I love you too, Master," she said, "You know I'm comfortable with your teasing, right? I know I don't show it, but I enjoy it. You don't have to change for me."

"I know," I said with a shrug, "It's not for you, though. It's for me."

"Isn't this sweet," came a certain arachne's voice from behind us, making my tail shoot out of my spine subconsciously, and I embarrassedly retracted it.

"How? Even now you can still make me quiver," I said flatly. She smirked.

"Don't even try to pretend that that choice of words wasn't intentional," Rachnera said coyly, crossing her arms and casually putting her hand to her cheek.

"You know me so well," I admitted, smiling warmly at her. Suddenly, I felt a string of webbing wrap around my arms and torso shibari style, and then myself being pulled into Rachnera's arms with my back to her chest.

"I know certain other things about you, too. Dirty, ravishing things," she mewled into my ear, nibbling on it for just a second, "Imagine what your parents would think if I told them about those magazines under your mattress." I blushed heavily.

"Rachnee, there's nothing wrong with men reading fashion mags," I pleaded.

"Oh, I know," she said, "But do they know?" She bit my neck lightly, and at this point, I was sure that we were starting to get angry looks, so I decided to try to end this the best way I knew how.

"Unh, harder Daddy!" I moaned quietly.

"OK, that's enough!" she said embarrassedly and threw her string off of me, scuttling back a few feet with a slight blush on her face.

"What you thought you had the power here? I know things about you too," I said with a cocky smile, then leaned in and put on the huskiest tone manageable, "Dirty, ravishing things."

"You make it sound like I care," she said with a smile of her own.

I rolled my eyes. This had gone on long enough, but I still had a promise I made to myself that I had to keep and moved towards her, wrapping my hands around her waist. Using my wings, I floated upwards, and I planted a kiss on her lips. There wasn't anything special or out of the ordinary with it other than that it was the biggest, wettest smooch I had ever given her, pressing into her face as hard as I could and pushing her head back with the power of it. When I pulled back, all six of her eyes blinked at me, her face boiling red.

"What was that for?" she squeaked.

"For being such a smart aleck," I said as if that were obvious, "And just so you know, I owe you a coffee."

At that, I started walking off, but not before I saw her and Centorea share ecstatic smiles and walk off to the grill to grab something to eat. Looking around, I took in as many sights as I could. Mom was drunkenly hanging off of Smith's shoulder, but the coordinator didn't care as she just rolled her eyes and helped Mom stay on her feet, the pair treating one another like old friends. Fortunately, Smith opted for coffee, which was good since I didn't think I could handle them both under the influence.

Zombina and Tio, on the other hand, didn't even bother drinking, but crowded around my dad at the grill, waiting for the lamb to finish while snacking on anything else he threw their way, and if I was being honest, he looked kind of pleased with the audience. I saw him make a few hand gestures and say something, the girls nodding a few times. Was he teaching them how to grill? It seemed like something he'd do if his "students" took interest in it, but if I knew Zombina and Tio, they only cared about the food he was cooking rather than actually cooking it.

I didn't care too much about them, though. I was too focused on something, or rather someone else. Someone who was currently slithering around the yard with Papi the Happy Harpy straddling her shoulders. Smiling, I caught her eye and waved at her. She didn't get a chance to wave back, though, as Papi smacked her head with her feathers to get her to keep running around. I think Miia saw the urgency in my face, despite the casual way I shook my head at them, and she set Papi down. Slithering over to me, she wrapped her arms around one of mine and gave me a kiss on the cheek, lacing our fingers together with the motion.

"Hello, Darling!" she said.

"Morning, Love," I said, brushing my hand through her hair to straighten it up after her playtime, "So, I had a thought."

"What's that?" she asked, leaning further into me and waving her tail around for Suu to ride on, wearing a raincoat so she didn't break apart or get Miia wet.

"So, we're engaged, right?" I asked, somehow feeling embarrassed by the prospect.

"Yes, I think we are," she giggled.

"So did I, but… we haven't done anything about that recently," I said, rubbing the back of my neck bashfully.

I glanced over at her, and saw a weird look on her face. Her mouth had dropped open and her tail had become all but mostly still, giving me a dumbfounded look like she was trying to process what I had told her.

"What do you mean?" she said, "We join together at least once a day now. At least. Usually more." She giggled again and slapped my chest, but I gave her the same look she just gave me.

"Yeah, but that… that's not…" I started, and saw Doppel giving me an amused smirk from over her shoulder, making me groan inwardly, "Can you tell me what you think marriage is?"

"Um… sure?" Miia started, "It's when two people decide to spend their lives together, sleeping only with each other, living together and bearing children, but some species like lamias usually have multiple partners. My tribe is a little… more extreme with this, but that's usually how it works. Why do you ask?"

I tried to hide it and it probably put a hilarious look on my face, but I laughed a little bit and promptly received a dirty look. I tried to bite my tongue. After hearing that explanation, I was suddenly reminded that purpose of the Interspecies Exchange Program was to help monsters integrate into human society, and even though the Program had put me and her into a unique position, I guess I had failed in that regard.

"Marriage for humans is just a bit different," I said, "There's supposed to be some kind of ceremony involved, and a ritual involving a church and a priest or something, and trust me, I'm making this sound way more simple than it really is because these things usually cost several thousand dollars, but yeah. There's a little more involved in it than just sharing a bed."

I looked up and saw Rachnera and Centorea continue to gossip with each other, and they caught my eyes went they felt me watching them. Rachnera was nonchalant about it. Centorea, on the other hand, gave me a polite nod and a salute over her shoulder. I didn't know what arachne or centaur culture said on this matter, but I was glad to know that lamias were more or less OK with sharing a single partner. Although, it kind of made me a bit nervous to meet her mother. In any case, I figured if there was any problem with it, either of the girls would have said something in the months we had been together, but after being together for so long in a healthy polyamorous relationship, even if their respective cultures did have a problem with having multiple partners, I doubt they would cut things off at this point for such a stupid reason.

Really, human culture seemed like it was a bigger issue for this than monster culture. Even in the current year, humans still held a pretty strong stigma towards… let's call it "romantically liberated people." If I tell someone that I was in love with multiple people, they would look at me like I was a manwhore who was incapable of holding a girlfriend. If I told them that I was dating three women, I would be a cheater. Even if I told them that all of these women consented to the alternative relationship, and that each and everyone of us filled our days with love and respect for each other, not giving into to jealousy and maintaining a healthy level of communication- and I hate that I have to be so specific about it -most people could still not possibly comprehend the idea of a healthy polyamorous relationship.

Frankly, I didn't care. As long as we were happy together, who really cared about what anyone else had to say about how we lived our lives. We loved each other. At the end of the day, that's all that really mattered.

"I'm glad you two are discussing this," Smith said, coming over and dropping my mom off with Papi who was immediately pulled into her lap, "There was something regarding this that I had to tell you."

"Knowing you, this is going to be good," I said flatly, Miia burying her head into my neck and groaning. Smith gave us a dead look, but continued.

"Because I've been running interference for you, the heads of the United Nations and the Interspecies Coalition don't know what you've been up and that you've been needlessly distracted from planning the wedding. They've been patient so far, but now they want results," she explained. Miia and I blinked at each other a few times, then buried our heads in our hands.

"I forgot this was a political thing," I grumbled. For us, we were getting married for love, but for the various world governments, this was a matter of promoting peace all across the world regardless of one's genetic classifications. Miia had been a coma for a long time, so that distracted us enough on its own, but after getting targeted by demons and having to fight for our lives, wedding plans had been on hold for far too long. It didn't surprise me they were getting impatient.

"Oh, relax," she said, dismissing my concerns, "All they're doing is putting pressure on you to hurry things up, so to help you set a date, pick out the food, and all of that romantic garbage, they've actually enlisted a wedding planner and our sending them out in a few weeks to help you move things forward. Just be aware that they're also sending a few agents with her since she's under commission from the ICEP, so I would be careful with, you know-" she discreetly poked a finger out to where Rachnera and Centorea were sitting, the latter arm wrestling Tio while the former lazily noshed on some coleslaw "-Other than that, you guys aren't in trouble, so just chill out, alright? You have nothing to worry about."

Just then, a flash of light beamed into the center of the yard with a booming thunder accompanying it. Lightning splashed this way and that, and we all watched as the air around the scene distorted and shifted, then breaking the laws of physics, the air began to ripple like a pool of water. None of us knew what was going on. Instinctively, I pushed Miia to the side and made sure she, Suu, and Papi were all behind me. That's when two familiar faces stepped out of the portal. As if we hadn't just had the battle of a lifetime less than 24 hours ago, Sashenka and Lala gracefully stepped onto our property, Sashenka's arms crossed and giving all of us a look, daring us to challenge her. Lala stayed at the side uncomfortably and carrying… a suitcase?

"OK, now you might have something to worry about," Smith said.

Meeting her challenge, I stepped up to Sashenka's prone form. With Papi and Suu within blast radius, the situation had become far more dangerous than last night's, Miia protectively standing between them and us so they weren't hurt. We had left them at home last night because they were too young for this. Mentally, though, since physically they were still adults.

When I got within striking distance of Sashenka, neither of us attacked, only silently meeting the other's eyes, watching each other as carefully as possible. We waited for the other to make a move. It didn't take our ability to sense energy signatures to see that both of us were tense and ready for a fight.

I didn't want to deal with this.

"Do you want to grab something to eat?" I tossed out. Sashenka's shoulders dropped and she let out a breath she was holding in, relief washing over her.

"I'd love to," she agreed.

My dad had already prepared us a couple of plates. I had a particular diet for barbecues like this, and my dad knew to plate me a plain cheeseburger and two hot dogs, a handful of chips on the side and a big slice of melon on the side, tossing me the ketchup afterwards. As for Sashenka and Lala, he didn't know them, so he gave them the basic burger with all the fixings and a side of potato chips with it. Once we had our food, Miia immediately joined us. As if sensing what was happening, far before we did, Papi and Suu waltzed over and snagged Lala, pulling her away from the three of us talking to her as easily as they did with everyone else.

The three of us sat in a surprisingly comfortable silence for a bit. We looked out over the family, gently nibbling on our dishes, and watched as everyone tried so hard to not feel put off by the demons' intrusion, but if I could see the disconcerting looks that Sashenka was getting, I was sure she could.

"It's been awhile, hasn't it Sachi?" I said in a poor attempt to make conversation.

"Oh yeah, like at least ten hours," she agreed flatly, "Almost a whole day. Wow, I can't believe I could ever be away from you for so long."

I tried to push back my amused smirk. She was sassy and sarcastic as Loki himself, the best comparison I could think of at the moment, and I loved it. If she hadn't tried to kill me, we might have been friends.

"I don't know why Darling let you join our party," Miia grumbled.

"Don't blame you," Sashenka agreed, "After all, I did mess up that pretty face of yours, didn't I?"

"Listen here, you little-" Miia charged for her, but I twisted her arm and turned her into me, holding her closely and pretending that it was affectionate, but I was really trying to make sure a fight didn't break out.

"I'm only teasing," Sashenka said frustratedly and turned away, "Sorry…"

Things were awkward again.

"You um… Enjoying the food?" I asked.

"Really? I just beat the crap out of you, and you're asking me if I like what I'm eating? Really?" she asked, completely in disbelief.

"Last I checked, we won that fight," I shot back.

"Barely," she said, a smile crossing her lips.

"You want a repeat of last night then?"

"Oh, bring it on!"

"Anytime, anywhere!"

We both looked at each other, and for the first time since I knew her, Sashenka didn't seem at all threatening. She smiled at me, and her eyes were still flashing dangerously, but unlike any other time she gave me this look, she actually seemed like she was having fun rather than trying to scare me. She and I actually ended up laughing with each other, even Miia offering an uncomfortable chuckle. I couldn't believe it, but talking to her under any circumstance that didn't require having to defend me or my family was really fun.

Not that I knew if she was here just to break bread with her enemy, or to try to hurt us again. With her being so close to me, I felt very naked not having my mom's coat, guns, or Drakmor anywhere nearby. I had put them back in mom's private study.

"So, why are you here, anyway?" I finally acknowledged the elephant in the room.

"We made a deal," she said, "And demons always hold up any agreements they make. You beat me so… Well, you get my maidservant now." Miia and I blinked at her.

"What?" Miia stammered, "Another one?"

"You were serious about that?" I asked. She turned to both of us and gave us the same bemused looks we had.

"Were you not?" she asked.

"I may or may not have gotten caught up in the moment," I admitted, scratching the back of my head nervously.

"Are you kidding me?" Sashenka grumbled, "We already got all her stuff packed up. She even said goodbye to the rest of her family and everything."

"Oh, I'm not about to go back on my word," I said hurriedly, "She's still free to move in. She will have to fill out some paperwork to join the exchange program though, or else she'd just be an illegal immigrant and that comes with its own problems, but I don't see a problem with her moving in. We're all family, and-"

Miia elbowed my ribs. I was rambling.

"You… you sure? This is OK?" Sashenka asked.

"Yes," I agreed.

"Oh… kay…" she said and shook her head, "This food is amazing. I'm going to go get some more."

She walked off and went back to Dad's grill just as he handed Tio her lamb, and just when she stepped out of earshot, Miia leaned into me a bit harder, wrapped her tail around me anxiously, and whispered to me. Her nails dug into my arms sharply. She wasn't bothering to hide the fear and anger in her voice when she snapped at me.

"What were you thinking?" she hissed quietly.

"I wasn't- I thought I was going to die!"

"You have another homestay now!"

"I was about to fight someone!"

"Did you not give it any thought?"

"She's a child!"

Miia looked over her shoulder at me and went silent. I wasn't sure if she was upset by this, or if she was trying to figure out how to respond, but since she didn't say a single thing, I groaned and mumbled into her hair.

"OK, you have a point," I said.

"I know you're just now starting to fight your depression. I'm not trying to be mean or anything," she said.

"I know," I said a little more harshly than I meant to, "I mean… I have more people to think about than just myself. I've learned that. I just need to figure out how to deal with it better than what I've been doing."

"Have you ever thought about… therapy?" she asked nervously. I glanced over to Sashenka, but she was amicably chatting with my dad at the moment. I also noticed that my mom jumped out of the house, sloppily dressed in her battle gear, but Smith intercepted her and drug her back into the house.

"Honestly? No, I haven't," I admitted, "I… Do you think…?"

"Yes," Miia said before I could finish that.

"Then, I'll schedule it tomorrow." I hugged her close and kissed her forehead a few times. "You make me a better person, you know that?"

"Mhm, I'll believe it when I see it," she teased, a smile crossing her face and hugging me with her tail, "Plus, I don't think having another girl move in will be that bad. Not when she's only a teenager and you're the one looking after her."

"You flatter me, but I know you'd have a problem with her if she were a few years older."

"I'm not jealous!"

"I didn't say you were."

I grinned and we shared laugh while she elbowed my ribs. That's when Sashenka started for us, holding a plate filled with donuts and brownies stacked a foot high, amused with our antics and raising an eyebrow as she smiled at us.

"Aw, how cute," she said, "You guys are almost sweet enough to rot my teeth out."

"Said the bakery's best customer," I countered, nodding to her plate of pastries.

"Yeah, I have a sweet tooth. What of it?" she didn't bother continuing our banter and leaned on the fence next to us, "There is one other thing you should know. It's the other reason I came here."

"OK… What's that?" I asked, Miia and I both turning to her nervously.

"Lala is a demon, yeah? Gloria was the first demon to join the ICEP, but that's because she has no ties to the Demon Realm itself, but Lala? She's my maidservant. Even though she's moving in with you, and has essentially become your servant after you beat me, she's still very close with the Coldfire royal family. That's my family, by the way." Explaining the situation, Sashenka didn't seem at all disconcerted with the pressure she was adding to us.

"So, what are you saying?" Miia asked.

"I'm saying that Kayo is right. He is one of the only two incubi in existence, so he gets to decide how he wants to treat the title," she said, "But he's also wrong on one count. Even if he doesn't want to be, he will still be a bridge between monsters and humans."

"No pressure or anything," I grumbled, "But what does that have to do with Lala?"

"Think about it. Lala is a high ranking demon, you're the bridge between humans and demons… The Demon Realm is interacting with human society more than we ever wanted to, but if we're being honest, you being a host in the ICEP and breeding peace between liminals and humans creates an issue for us. How do we handle our second incubus siding with humans instead of his own kind?"

Mii and I stared at her blankly. She took a second for her words to sink in, finishing off her pastry plate, and after she had licked all of the frosting off her fingers, she kicked herself off the fence and started walking off. She didn't keep us hanging, though. While she opened another portal, slashing her claws through the air in front of her to do so, she turned to us and gave us one imperative look, her words filled with meaning and power when she finally told us what she was hiding.

"We're not asking you to do anything you don't want to do or play any part in demonic politics that you don't want to take part in," she said, "But just so you know, my mom, Demon Queen Kalisis Coldfire IV, has decided to join the Interspecies Coalition. In maybe a few years, when we earn the trust of the human governments and can take part in this exchange program you guys have going on, you might see little demon feet running around your neighborhood. Keep in touch, alright?"

She turned to walk into the portal, but much to my surprise, and before I could stop her, Miia separated from me and jumped for her. I panicked. I thought she was going to start a fight and my tail shot out of my spine and slapped the ground around me subconsciously, but I didn't need to move or defend my fiance. Miia wasn't going to attack her. Instead, she turned Sashenka around and gave her a single tight hug.

"We're not going to fight anymore, right?" she asked.

"I… I guess not?" Sashenka stammered. Then, Miia separated from her and gave her a warm, motherly smile.

"Then, come visit us sometime! We'll be happy to have you," she said. I jumped for her and wrapped my arm around her waist, sharing her smile.

"I couldn't agree more," I said. Sashenka stared at us, completely stunned that we would treat our attempted murderer so kindly.

"I… You guys are idiots," she said, and biting her lip, she jumped into the portal, closing it behind her.

I wrapped my hand in Miia's. Giving her a comfortable smile, she gave my hand a tight squeeze and started pulling me towards where Agent Smith was watching us, waiting to hear what happened with the Princess.

I had wanted to spend the rest of my life with Miia from the moment I met her. She was the first woman who I fell in love with, and the first woman I felt loved me just the same, and it was because of her I learned how wonderful peace and happiness could be when you experience a relationship like ours. While it bugged me that our marriage would be partially political, I knew I wanted nothing more than for it to happen, as it would open the gateway for other liminals and humans to stop hiding their relationships, to not feel the fear of hiding their relationships from their coordinators and risk deportation and capital punishment. After learning how beautiful this feeling was, it filled me with hope for society that we were able to spread our love around the world. I didn't expect it to have such far reaching consequences.

A woman who loved me, a growing family, and no small amount of excitement. I could never even fathom all the things one person could add to your life, but after having her with me for so long, I could never again imagine what my life would be like if Miia wasn't with me.

Our futures together looked bright, and I knew that with her, our lives would only get better.


End file.
